Did you know Dallas had almost twice the number of murders in 2021 as in 2014? We had a staggering 220 murders in 2021 versus 116 in 2014. Ask yourself what has changed in 7 years.
Is it an increase in population?
Well, the population has increased from around 1.23 Million people to 1.33 Million. That is an increase of 8% in population versus a 90% increase in Murder.
Here’s another guess. In 2011 the Dallas Police has 3690 officers serving a population of under 1.2 Million residents. A ratio of 1 officer to 333 residents. Today, DPD has a force of 3000 officers serving a population of 1.33 million. That is a ratio of 1 officer to 443 residents. That amounts to a 25% reduction in the officer to citizen ratio. So, are we surprised that given such a dramatic decrease in the number of officers that crime has infested so rapidly? We should not be.
Keep in mind the only reason the force hasn’t been gutted to 2000 officers is that Keep Dallas Safe organized community members after radicals on the Dallas City Council shamefully voted to defund the police in 2020 and threatened further cuts.
But we can and must do better. Dallas needs a force of 4000 officers minimum in order to return ourselves to the officer to citizen ratio that made Dallas a safe place to live for so long. Our City Council members unfortunately don’t bear the consequences of their disastrous budget cuts. They collect their pay and retreat to gated estates and luxury condos every day and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves. We need to wake our leaders up to the fact that Dallas needs more cops and we need them now.