Of the more than 16,500 assault offenses documented in Dallas so far this year, the overwhelming number were committed against people of color.
Roughly 7,900 assault victims were black, and about 5,600 were Hispanic or Latino as of August 18, according to the City of Dallas Open Data crime analytics victim demographic dashboard.
The numbers are even worse when zooming in on the 4,326 aggravated assaults committed in 2023, with 51.3% of victims logged as black and 35.7% as Hispanic or Latino.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) has been suffering a severe staffing shortage, coming in about 900 officers short of the 4,000 recommended by a City report. Black and Hispanic people have borne the brunt of the difference, comprising the majority of murder victims as well.
“You cannot have public safety if you don’t have community and law enforcement and all other stakeholders working together, for real, with a common cause to impact crime and affect [positive change] in neighborhoods,” said Antong Lucky, president of the non-profit anti-violence organization Urban Specialists.
In a July interview, he explained to The Dallas Express how he and others like himself were trying to reach repeat offenders getting out of prison and jail to try to connect them with resources and lawful opportunities.
Another issue Lucky has been working on is building trust between the police and communities of color in Dallas.
“Communities of color feel as though there is a blue wall of silence, that there is no accountability of police, that officers sit out and watch their colleagues do heinous stuff. And then you have officers saying to the community, ‘Hey, when something heinous happened, you didn’t tell us who did it.’ That’s a real thing, whether we accept it or not,” Lucky said.
Adding to the public safety dynamic in Dallas, police response times have shot up even higher over the last few months due to the police shortage, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The shortage has been especially felt in Downtown Dallas, which routinely logs much more crime than Fort Worth’s downtown area. The latter is reportedly patrolled by a dedicated police unit that works alongside private security guards.