Three Dallas City Council districts are standing out from the rest by logging significant increases in assault offenses committed against black and Hispanic individuals.
According to the City of Dallas victim demographics dashboard, Districts 2, 12, and 14 are currently the only council districts in which assaults against blacks and Hispanics are trending upward as of April 12.
Council Member Jesse Moreno’s District 2 logged an 8.4% increase in offenses over the same period in 2023, clocking 531 incidents involving such victims. District 14, which is represented by Council Member Paul Ridley, saw an even bigger year-over-year increase of 17.4%. There were 303 such reports there.
Both District 2 and District 14 include a roughly even share of Dallas’ Central Business District, which has been known to host considerably more crime than Fort Worth’s downtown area. Monthly comparative studies looking at the two neighborhoods regularly find greater magnitudes of criminal activity in the former, including assaults, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Downtown Fort Worth is reportedly patrolled by a special neighborhood police unit that works alongside private security guards.
Still, Council Member Cara Mendelsohn’s District 12 saw the biggest spike in assaults against black and Hispanic people at 36.6%, with the number of incidents jumping from 172 to 235. Located in Far North Dallas, District 12 typically logs significantly less crime overall than most other council districts.
This rise in assaults on blacks and Hispanics comes as the Dallas Police Department continues to grapple with a serious staffing shortage. The department fields only around 3,000 officers. A previous City analysis, however, advised that a figure closer to 4,000 is necessary to properly maintain public safety and reduce lengthy police response times.
As previously reported by DX, DPD successfully bringing down some categories of violent crime, overall crime in the city has been ticking up for years. Regardless, the Dallas City Council opted to spend fewer less taxpayer money on law enforcement than its counterparts in other high-crime jurisdictions, such as New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, budgeting only $654 million for DPD this fiscal year.
