Motor vehicle thefts and assault offenses in the Downtown Dallas area are still on the rise some three months into the new year.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, auto thefts are up 30.1% in Dallas Police Department Sector 130 as of April 2, with 238 reported incidents on the books.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Dallas stood out as ground zero for auto thefts in North Texas last year, logging a record-high of 18,845 citywide, with Sector 130 — which comprises the Central Business District and Victory Park — racking up the most incidents out of all the DPD sectors at 961.
Downtown Dallas falls within Council Members Jesse Moreno and Paul Ridley’s council districts, District 2 and District 14, respectively.
Assault offenses have also been increasing in Sector 130 by nearly 20%, with 229 crimes reported compared to the 191 clocked during the same period last year.
The Metroplex Civic & Business Association publishes a monthly comparative study examining crime in Downtown Dallas and Fort Worth’s city center. Far more crime regularly gets recorded in the former than in the latter. Downtown Fort Worth is patrolled by a specialized police unit and private security teams.
Relatedly, DPD has been suffering from a severe labor shortage, fielding only around 3,000 police officers when a City report previously advised roughly 4,000 are necessary to maintain public safety properly.
The department was only budgeted $654 million this fiscal year by the Dallas City Council, much less than what other high-crime jurisdictions like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City spend on their police departments.
The Dallas Express, The People’s Paper, believes that important information about the city, such as crime rates and trends, should be easily accessible to you. Dallas has more crime per capita than hotspots like Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York, according to data from the FBI’s UCR database.
How did your area stack up on crime? Check out our interactive Crime Map to compare all Dallas City Council Districts. Curious how we got our numbers? Check out our methodology page here.