Northwest Dallas saw more murders than most other parts of town last month, particularly in one council district: Council Member Narvaez’s District 6.
Typically known for prostitution and other sex trafficking-related offenses, as previously reported by The Dallas Express, District 6 occupies the city’s northwestern flank running along and around Interstate 35 from Interstates 635 to 30.
Council Member Narvaez’s District 6 saw an alarming spike in murders in April, jumping by 500% year over year, with six cases logged by the Dallas Police Department (DPD), according to the City of Dallas Open Data crime analytics dashboard.
District 8, represented by Council Member Tennell Atkins, has been spotlighted by The Dallas Express for running up the worst murder counts year to date in recent months, but violent criminal activity accelerated in District 6 in March and April.
The increase in District 6 murders in 2023 has been startling. DPD logged one in January and two in February, then murders shot up, with six reported in both March and April.
The scale of the increase can also be seen in year-over-year comparisons, with no murders logged in March of 2022 and only one in April of 2022.
A total of 15 people were murdered in District 6 in the first four months of 2023, compared to the eight murders reported in the same period last year, marking an 87.5% year-over-year increase, according to City data.
Murders have unfortunately been on the rise in Dallas this year, with 95 logged citywide by DPD as of May 1, a 23.4% jump from the same period last year, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
No more recent crime statistics are currently publicly available, allegedly because a ransomware attack on City servers has hindered the police department’s ability to accurately relay crime data, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
A request for comment was sent to Council Member Narvaez’s office, but no reply was received by press time.
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.