Assault offenses in Downtown Dallas have skyrocketed this year amid the Dallas Police Department’s ongoing staffing crisis.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, 371 assaults were committed in Sector 130 as of May 24, marking a 22.8% increase over the 302 offenses logged during the same period in 2023.
Sector 130 comprises the Central Business District and Victory Park neighborhood, where the American Airlines Center is located. Roughly half the area lies within Council Member Jesse Moreno’s District 2 and the other half in Council Member Paul Ridley’s District 14.
Assaults in Dallas can be broken down into three categories of criminal offense: simple assault, aggravated assault, and intimidation.
Simple assaults shot up by 19.7%, with 249 incidents logged this year. Cases of intimidation skyrocketed, jumping from 46 to 72 offenses for a 56.5% spike. Aggravated assaults crept up by 4.2%, with 50 such crimes clocked.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Downtown Dallas suffers from a considerable amount of criminal activity, much more than Fort Worth’s city center, which has a dedicated police unit and private security guards patrolling the neighborhood.
DPD only has around 3,000 sworn officers citywide, despite a prior City report claiming roughly 4,000 were necessary to maintain public safety in a jurisdiction the size of Dallas.
The department also has only $654 million this fiscal year, less than other high-crime cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City allocate to their law enforcement agencies.
Speaking with DX in a previous interview, Metroplex Civic & Business Association CEO Louis Darrouzet said the only way to truly support police is by addressing the critical officer shortage.
“The City just continues to play games. They are not hiring enough police officers on purpose. They’re spending money on things that make it look like their budget is the same or increasing,” he claimed. “The biggest correction to crime is having a police presence. It’s not even putting people in jail, just having enough people on the street, making people less likely to commit crime, and the City’s not doing that.”