An 18-year-old from Aubrey succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday after being struck by a vehicle he had allegedly tried to submerge in Lewisville Lake the day before.
Little Elm police officers discovered Keith Johnson critically injured in the 1200 block of Gammon Road, near Doe Branch Park, on the morning of December 18. He died in a nearby hospital the following day.
Johnson was believed to have been struck by the very vehicle he had allegedly been trying to sink in Lewisville Lake at around 1 a.m. Detectives traced the car to a motor vehicle theft report made in Denton County.
Little Elm police are still investigating the incident, and no further information has been released as of press time.
Motor vehicle theft has been a nationwide problem this year. Yet Dallas has, in many ways, become ground zero for such crimes, seeing a year-over-year increase of 40.3% in such offenses compared to the year prior, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard. With 18,305 reports logged as of December 21, motor vehicle theft is the most prevalent crime in the city, followed by simple assaults and motor vehicle break-ins.
The Dallas Police Department rolled out a new reporting scheme for victims of motor theft this week in hopes of reducing delays in officers’ response times, as previously covered by The Dallas Express. The strategy involves deploying limited-duty officers and video-conferencing technology to document initial reports, cutting hours off of the process.
Still, DPD’s longstanding officer shortage remains a persistent issue, with only 12 officers currently assigned to the auto theft unit. Overall, only about 3,000 officers are fielded in Dallas despite a previous City report recommending 4,000 to maintain public safety and ensure reasonable police response times.
Downtown Dallas has been bearing the brunt of this shortfall, with many of the city’s motor vehicle thefts concentrated in the neighborhood, as covered by The Dallas Express. Meanwhile, nearby Fort Worth’s downtown area, which is patrolled by a dedicated police unit working alongside private security guards, sees significantly lower levels of crime, including motor vehicle theft.
