After a murder victim was found fatally shot inside his vehicle, Dallas police found two more bodies at his registered address Monday night.
Officers from the Dallas Police Department responded to reports of a shooting in the 7700 block of Harry Hines Boulevard shortly before midnight on March 11. They found a vehicle belonging to a male gunshot victim, who had already been taken to a nearby hospital by first responders.
Upon checking the vehicle’s registration, the officers went to a home in the 2300 block of Gilford Street. Inside the residence were two more victims who had been fatally shot.
DPD has not yet released the names of the victims, but detectives believe their deaths were “linked to criminal activity,” per a news release. As previously covered by The Dallas Express, a similar trend was identified by Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia when questioned about the city’s bloody start to the new year.
“These aren’t necessarily random acts of violence that are occurring,” he told WFAA about five homicides that occurred over the span of four days in January. He explained that most of the victims had been involved in criminal activity or some other kind of high-risk behavior.
Murder victims have tended to be black and Hispanic young adult males, as recently covered by The Dallas Express.
Det. Christopher Walton is working on the triple murder case and can be reached at 214-701-8453 or by email at [email protected] if anyone has any information that might help identify a suspect.
Both of the shooting locations are situated within Council Member Jesse Moreno’s District 2, which has seen considerable criminal activity this year. As of March 11, 2,143 criminal offenses had been logged there — comprising 11.5% of the crimes in Dallas so far this year, according to data from the City’s crime analytics dashboard.
DPD has struggled to curb crime citywide amid a critical officer shortage. Just 3,000 officers are in the field despite a City report recommending a force of 4,000 to adequately address public safety needs — including prompt response times. While shooting calls currently see an average response time of 5.8 minutes, which is within the goal of 8 minutes, some high-priority calls — such as a residential robbery in progress — have an average response time of 9 minutes.
Comparative studies from the Metroplex Civic & Business Association have shown that Downtown Dallas regularly logs more crime than Fort Worth’s city center. Private security guards and a dedicated neighborhood police unit patrol the latter.
The Dallas City Council approved a DPD budget of $654 million this fiscal year, which is significantly less than the spending seen on police in other high-crime jurisdictions, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.
