Dallas police are touting their new violent crime task force, which was recently deployed as part of the City’s Violent Crime Reduction Plan.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) is pursuing a hot-spot-based approach to bringing down violent crime. The plan is supposed to rely on up-to-date crime data to tailor the deployment of resources. However, the City’s ability to collect crime statistics has allegedly been hindered by a purported ransomware attack.
Still, DPD went forward with its plan, organizing a “Place Network Investigations” (PNI) unit of 32 officers dedicated to tackling gun and drug crimes and gang activity in the city’s four highest crime areas.
Several raids were conducted earlier in July at multiple apartment complexes across the city. DPD Sgt. George Aranda said the unit and SWAT personnel brought in a substantial haul from the operations, confiscating items ranging from dangerous drugs such as fentanyl, crack, and cocaine to various firearms and other narcotics.
“It’s having a direct impact on violent crime and aggravated assault and the property etc. Those are the individuals that we are targeting,” Aranda claimed, according to WFAA.
DPD Police Chief Eddie Garcia argued that pursuing criminals engaged in drug trafficking and gang activity will directly impact Dallas’ violent crime rate.
“For every drug house that they hit with weapons and drugs. There are aggravated assaults and murders that were stopped because of that,” Garcia told WFAA.
DPD’s efforts to tackle violent crime come amidst a significant police shortage in the department, which is short around 900 of the 4,000 officers needed to effectively police the city, according to a City document.
“Because of [the shortage], that customer service that we have long given to the city of Dallas … we just can’t do anymore. And I think we’re actually hurting our relationship with the community more than helping it by not changing to doing something different,” said Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata, per the Dallas Observer.
While the city has seen an overall violent crime reduction as of May 1 to add to the previous year-over-year dip, murders were up more than 20% during the first four months of 2023. More up-to-date data is currently unavailable, allegedly due to the purported ransomware attack.
“[H]aving PNI teams in specific hot spot areas in the city has absolutely reduced crime,” said Garcia, according to WFAA.
Still, it is currently unclear whether that reduction is being felt in Downtown Dallas, where rampant crime has regularly outpaced crime in Fort Worth’s downtown area, which is reportedly patrolled by its own geographically-dedicated unit in collaboration with private security guards.
