Police are beefing up their presence at a popular recreational spot in Garland after residents started noticing an increase in alleged criminal activity and late-night disturbances.
The Boneyard skatepark, which opened last fall, has been a draw for skaters and young locals, but there is growing concern among community members that it is becoming a hotbed of violence and mischief.
“The church has talked to us and said they’ve been broken into three times already. There’s been shooting. We don’t know where it’s coming from,” Garland resident Debbie Hale said to CBS 11.
She told the news outlet she is also concerned about the noise levels at the park late at night, claiming that children were out there messing around and screaming as late as 3 a.m.
However, not everyone in the area seems to agree with Hale’s assessment.
“It’s just a bunch of kids doing stuff for attention and up here, you won’t see a lot of that,” Keyomi Robinson told CBS 11.
Still, the allegations strike a different image than what was touted to city residents when the park first started allowing visitors in October, with one speaker at the grand opening claiming, “By the time we get finished today [with the ribbon cutting] the cool factor in Garland will have increased exponentially,” as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
The Boneyard has gotten some attention prior to the reported increase in disturbances. For instance, professional skateboarding legend Tony Hawk made a public appeal for the City of Garland to rename the park to honor Garland resident and former professional skater Jon Comer, who died in 2019, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
While not everyone in Garland necessarily agrees that the skatepark has become a focal point of criminal activity, Lt. Richard Maldonado of the Garland police acknowledged to CBS 11 that officers have been making arrests at the park and are keeping an eye out.
“You’re going to see officers in and around the area,” Maldonado told the news outlet. “They’re going to patrol the areas actively to see if they come across anything beforehand.”
Maldonado theorized that the uptick in criminal behavior could just have to do with the weather warming up, prompting more people to go outside and be active.
If true, Dallas could also see an uptick in crime, heaping more pain on residents who have already been suffering a nearly 30% increase in criminal homicides year to date with little support from City leaders, according to the City of Dallas Open Data crime analytics dashboard.