After a weekend with a high crime count, Dallas community leaders ask for more police officers to be assigned to the streets.
One of those requesting more officers is Toska Medlock Lee, the marketing manager with Williams Chicken, a restaurant off East Ledbetter and Sunnyvale in southern Dallas. Early on Monday, employees at the restaurant had to call 911 after a woman was killed only a few feet away from the restaurant.
“Our staff member heard gunshots and called police,” Medlock Lee said.
“This is not just a fast food place; this is a place where people feed their families,” the marketing manager complained. The shooting near Williams Chicken left an eighteen-year-old dead.
Community leaders believe that the community needs everyone to play their part to stop the violence in the city. According to WFAA, they said they’ve been holding public forums at local churches in a bid to get everyone involved. “We need the city, the council members to really step up and come up with a plan,” Lee said.
According to Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia, the Dallas PD does have a plan. After the Deep Ellum shooting that left five injured and one dead, the police chief said that the department increased police presence and added barricades.
Garcia said the Dallas PD is working hard to cut down on crime in the area. According to the department, officers targeted eleven out of forty-seven areas of crime that had the most reports of aggravated assaults, robberies, and murders. Dallas PD believes that the targeted approach facilitated a drop of about 6% in violent crime in the city.
“We have less aggravated assault victims,” Garcia said last week. “We had approximately 135 less assault victims in this three-month period from last year, and 13 less murders in June, July, and August.”
The police chief said that while Dallas PD is doing its best to cut crime, the involvement of all community members will go a long way in solving crime.