Dallas City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn’s District 12 logged the second-biggest increase in Crime Score last month, making her the runner-up for April’s Crime Boss of the Month title.
Her district’s Crime Score jumped by 11.62% year over year, putting Mendelsohn some 14 percentage points behind the current Crime Boss of the Month, Council Member Jaynie Schultz of District 11.
Both districts are situated in northern Dallas, but Mendelsohn’s is the northernmost in the city, located right above Schultz’s. District 12 runs between Waterview Parkway and Kelly Boulevard and is largely hemmed in by the President George Bush Turnpike to the north.
The district’s Crime Score increase appears to have been primarily caused by a spike in theft offenses in March, with the Dallas Police Department reporting a 29.6% year-over-year increase that month, according to the City of Dallas Open Data crime analytics dashboard.
A deeper look into the City’s data shows that thefts were bolstered by increases in car burglaries and the theft of motor vehicle parts and accessories.
DPD logged 43 car burglaries last month, 15 more than were reported in March 2021. As for the theft of motor vehicle parts, incidents increased by 20% last month.
There were also significant increases in motor vehicle thefts and home and business burglaries.
Motor vehicle thefts clocked a 21.2% bump. Burglaries, however, skyrocketed, jumping from nine in March 2022 to 25 incidents in 2023, an increase of more than 177%.
Still, despite the spikes in criminality District 12 saw last month, Mendelsohn’s district is typically one of the comparatively less dangerous council districts in the city.
A request for comment was sent to Council Member Mendelsohn’s office, but no response 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.
