Urban Specialists hosted a ‘Killing Ain’t Cool’ peace rally in Dallas to raise awareness about an uptick in violent crime and to promote ways to reduce the number of deaths due to gun violence.
The event, held on Saturday morning at Glendale Park, featured a variety of vendors and activities for children and families, including yoga for kids and pop-up information booths managed by Dallas Police Recruiting, Dallas 311, and more.
Urban Specialists, a non-profit anti-violence organization, exists to bring together the community against violent crime and “activate a network of changemakers who transform communities through collaboration and powerful local leadership.”
The group further notes on its website that its goal is to “disrupt the trends of violence and poverty by recruiting, training, and deploying changemakers from various backgrounds to positively impact urban communities.”
Antong Lucky, the president of Urban Specialists, said in the event’s press release that the organization was “asking all community organizations, services providers, influencers, and OGs to come together to join in and help us to promote more healing and less killing!”
Ebony Eugene attended the event as a social services coordinator for the City of Dallas. She told The Dallas Express that her office likes to “participate with the community” and inform as many people as possible about potential benefits they could receive.
“Our goal is to lift barriers, to help people with barriers, and we know finances are tough at this time. So if we can alleviate one financial responsibility while assisting them in addressing other barriers, that’s what our heart is to do,” Eugene told DX.
“So other barriers that we can assist with as caseworkers can be employment, different housing options, different things like that. So our goal is to help the community out so they can better help themselves too,” she added.
The event came as homicide offenses remain high throughout Dallas, with the City’s crime analytics dashboard indicating that there have been 107 such offenses in 2024 as of June 7, some 89 of which were murders.
As previously reported by DX, black and Hispanic individuals comprised the overwhelming majority of all murder victims last year. The victim demographics dashboard suggests the same trend will bear out this year, with 66.3% of victims logged as black and 27% as Hispanic thus far.
Efforts to manage crime in Dallas have been difficult due to a significant shortage of police officers. The Dallas Police Department has roughly 3,000 sworn-in officers, despite a City report stating that the department needs around 4,000 officers to fight crime proactively.
Budgeting only around $654 million for DPD this fiscal year, the Dallas City Council chose to spend less taxpayer money on public safety than other high-crime jurisdictions, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.