A man wanted in connection to the kidnapping of a 7-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy from Oak Cliff last month has been booked in Dallas County Jail.
The suspect, Leonard Lamar Neal, 41, has been charged with felony counts of aggravated kidnapping, kidnapping, and aggravated sexual assault of a child, according to NBC 5 DFW.
Neal had been added to Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list in late June, with the Texas Department of Public Safety offering a reward of $10,000 for information leading to his arrest, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. He was already known to police, having been previously arrested on allegations of aggravated robbery and aggravated assault.
The latest charges stem from Neal allegedly luring a young girl and her brother into his car near their apartment in the 1500 block of Argentia Drive on June 11. He later released the boy at a store near West Kiest Boulevard, letting the girl go 12 hours later, Fox 4 KDFW reported.
After roughly three weeks on the run, Neal was arrested under dramatic circumstances in the Red Bird neighborhood, near Polk Street and Camp Wisdom Road, aboard a DART bus on July 7. A couple riding the bus had recognized him and alerted the authorities.
When both Dallas police and U.S. Marshals arrived on the scene, they said Neal tried to cut his own throat, according to Fox 4. After receiving treatment for his injuries at a nearby hospital, Neal was taken to Dallas County Jail and booked.
A mugshot photo taken during Neal’s booking and released by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office shows that he had a sizeable jagged gash across his neck. Neal is currently being held on three bonds, two for $500,000 and one for $100,000.
The two children are with their family, who said the pair have a long road to recovery still ahead, according to NBC 5.
A growing number of crimes have been committed against children in North Texas, with stories of sexual assault, overdosing, and murder appearing in the headlines.
In Dallas, criminal homicides increased by 23% in the first four months of the year, with more recent data said to be “unreliable” by the City due to an alleged ransomware attack on its servers in May.
The Dallas Police Department has been staffing far fewer than the 4,000 officers recommended by a City analysis, with some 900 sworn personnel needed to effectively police Dallas. Police officials have pointed to the staffing shortage as a serious drag on the department’s ability to respond to high-priority calls.
“It’s going to be a very long time before we ever catch up to where we need to be or where we should be as far as manpower,” Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata said, per the Dallas Observer.
Neighboring Fort Worth has implemented a dedicated police unit to patrol its downtown area, which reportedly helped drastically lower crime rates, leaving the neighborhood far safer than Downtown Dallas.
The residents of Oak Cliff, where Neal had kidnapped the two children, hired three off-duty Dallas police officers to patrol the neighborhood on the Fourth of July to deter the use of illegal fireworks and the firing of weapons, as previously reported in The Dallas Express. The residents concurred that DPD officer shortages are making it more difficult to adequately police their neighborhood, which is located in Council Member Carolyn King Arnold’s District 4.