Black and Hispanic people continue to make up the vast majority of assault victims in Dallas.
According to the City’s crime victim demographics dashboard, some 2,848 assault offenses were committed within Dallas city limits as of February 16, including 1,704 simple assaults, 648 aggravated assaults, and 496 cases of intimidation. Black individuals comprised 47.1% of all assault victims this year, and Hispanic or Latino people made up 34.4%.
Of the 1,342 reports involving black assault victims logged by the City, 862 of the victims were recorded as female (64.2%). The median age of victims, irrespective of sex, is 33 years old.
As far as Hispanic or Latino assault victims go, the median age of victims is 31 years old. Some 578 of the assault victims were logged as female (59%).
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, black and Hispanic people made up the overwhelming majority of assault victims last year as the Dallas Police Department continued to struggle to get crime under control amid a serious staffing shortage. Only around 3,000 officers are currently fielded by DPD, even though a City analysis advises that a jurisdiction the size of Dallas should have roughly 4,000 officers to properly ensure public safety and reduce police response times.
Budgeting only $654 million for the department this fiscal year, the Dallas City Council voted to spend much less taxpayer money on law enforcement than other high-crime jurisdictions, like New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
When looking at the City’s dashboard heatmap, there is a pronounced concentration of assault offenses in and around Downtown Dallas.
“[Vagrants are] assaulting people to get money. It creates a dynamic where they’re kind of in a fight or flight situation; they’re trying to survive,” Louis Darrouzet, CEO of the Metroplex Civic & Business Association (MCBA), told The Dallas Express in a previous interview.
MCBA publishes a monthly comparative study of Downtown Dallas and Fort Worth’s city center. The former regularly outpaces the latter in terms of criminal activity, with motor vehicle thefts, assaults, and drug crimes driving the disparity. Fort Worth’s downtown area is patrolled by a dedicated police unit and private security guards.
