A domestic dispute escalated into a shooting in Oak Cliff early Thursday morning, with Dallas police searching for the suspect.

Two men and a woman were arguing at an apartment complex near the intersection of Bonnie View Road and Illinois Avenue at around 2 a.m. Reports suggest that one of the men was the woman’s boyfriend, and he allegedly was trying to strangle her, per WFAA.

When the woman asked a third man — purportedly a former boyfriend — to come to the apartment, the clash boiled over, and the latter allegedly shot the two men.

Officers with the Dallas Police Department arrived on scene, but the suspect had already fled.

One of the victims was seriously injured and was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment, per reporting by Fox 4 KDFW. One of the men had sought help at a fire station down the street and sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

The shooting occurred in Council Member Carolyn King Arnold’s District 4, which has seen growing rates of violent crime these past few months. As of May 15, there had been 14 murders committed there this year — a 16.7% uptick year over year. Two were categorized as family violence crimes in the City’s crime analytics dashboard.

Although assault offenses have decreased compared to 2023, a whopping total of 869 reports have already been logged. Of these, 229 were aggravated assaults, meaning this violent crime is occurring at a rate of more than one per day in District 4.

As covered in The Dallas Express, Arnold has been active in a multijurisdictional public safety and community partnership called #Dallas365Safe. This partnership aims to reduce youth crime by forging strong relationships between the police and the community.

“If you see something, say something. And if you know something, do something. That is the only way we can have a community that is 365 Safe,” Arnold said at a meeting in April.

People of color, and black men in particular, have been disproportionately affected by violent crime. Of the 15 murder victims in District 4 so far this year, 12 were black males between the ages of 16 to 42, two were adult Hispanic men, and one was a black 80-year-old woman, per City data.

DPD has been short-staffed, dampening efforts to curb crime and maintain adequate police response times. The force fields roughly 3,000 officers despite a City report recommending closer to 4,000. DPD’s resources are also stretched thin due to only being budgeted $654 million for this fiscal year. The Dallas City Council opted to spend considerably less on police than the leaders of other high-crime jurisdictions, including Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

The recent ninefold crime rate clocked in Downtown Dallas compared to neighboring Fort Worth’s city center, which is patrolled by a specialized police force and private security guards, is but one example of the effects of these shortfalls.