Crime Boss of the Month winner Jaime Resendez’s city council district, Southeast Dallas’ D5, saw an uptick in month-over-month robberies in January.
Robberies, one of the four categories of violent crime tracked by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, increased by roughly 43% in January compared to December 2022, according to the City of Dallas Open Data crime analytics dashboard.
The uptick coincides with a resurgence in violent crime offenses across Dallas, with murders and aggravated assaults spiking significantly since the beginning of the new year.
The Dallas Police Department (DPD) shared with The Dallas Express some details about a few of the less publicized robberies in District 5 last month.
At about 10:30 a.m. on January 5, DPD responded to a call at a Walmart on South Buckner Boulevard. A woman had reportedly been taking items without paying for them, and when confronted by an employee, the woman allegedly threatened the employee by brandishing a gun. Luckily no injuries were reported.
Later that evening, in a brazen robbery-turned-larceny, a female suspect allegedly entered a 7-11 on Bruton Road and demanded the clerk open the cash register. The suspect did not make any explicit threats, did not use force, and did not show a weapon.
In turn, the employee told the woman to get out of the store, allegedly prompting the suspect to hastily grab “about six bottles of wine” before making her escape. Police responded to the scene after receiving a call about a robbery in progress. However, after learning the details of the incident, the offense was downgraded to shoplifting.
Ten days later, in the middle of the afternoon, an employee at a Dollar General on North Masters Drive was putting a deposit bag into a safe when a male suspect allegedly shoved the employee violently and left the store with the bag.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, business robberies in 2022 ended up surpassing those in 2021, with a DPD briefing clocking a 4% increase by mid-December.
The Dallas Express reached out to Councilman Resendez and his office about the recent increase in violent crime offenses and to ask if he plans to use his seat on the council’s Public Safety Committee to push the wider council to actually deal with the city’s crime problem.
No response was forthcoming 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.
For more Dallas crime-related news, see how the Dallas Police Department response times are on the rise.