Dallas police responded to incidents involving two stolen vehicles at the same apartment complex barely a day apart.
Last Friday evening, Steven Binko was walking his dog outside his home in North Star Apartments on Forest Lane in northeastern Dallas when he noticed his Kia was gone. He checked his security camera and, sure enough, saw that it had caught two suspects approaching and then driving off in his vehicle.
“It’s a really violating feeling,” he told Fox 4 KDFW.
“Somebody robbed me of my freedom, my safety, my peace of mind. They didn’t just take a car,” he added.
He filed a report with the Dallas Police Department, but that wasn’t the end of the story. The following day, yet another incident involving a stolen Kia had DPD officers knocking on Binko’s door.
“I looked out the window and there was a swarm of cops, and they said there had just been another accident,” he told Fox 4.
DPD officers had spotted a stolen Kia Soul and followed it to the apartment complex. Binko’s camera caught the driver hopping out of the vehicle while it was still moving, allowing it to crash into another in the parking lot.
“To have two incidents happen back-to-back in the same parking lot makes the area feel really unsafe as it is,” Binko told Fox 4.
Binko’s apartment complex is located in District 10, represented by Council Member Kathy Stewart. While motor vehicle theft rates across the city have slumped a bit compared to last year’s record-breaking high, they are still continuing at an alarming pace.
Stewart’s District 10 had already logged 505 reports of auto theft as of July 24, which amounts to roughly two cars stolen each day this year, according to data from the City’s crime analytics dashboard. However, this figure is nearly half that seen in some other council districts, such as District 2 and District 14, which comprise Downtown Dallas.
Jesse Moreno’s District 2 has logged 974 reports of motor vehicle theft, and Paul Ridley’s District 14 has seen 996.
The high number of Kia and Hyundai vehicles stolen lately suggests that the social media trend that began in 2021 with a group of teenage criminals known as the Kia Boys is still making them prime targets for thieves.
The car makers have launched various free updates and steering wheel locks for vehicle owners to deter thieves. Nevertheless, Dallas remains ground zero in the North Texas area for motor vehicle thefts, thanks in large part to DPD’s serious staffing shortage and a budget of $654 million, which is smaller than that of law enforcement agencies in other high-crime cities.
DPD only has around 3,000 officers in service, whereas a City report recommended a force of roughly 4,000 to properly maintain public safety in a jurisdiction the size of Dallas. The surging rates of crime — not just motor vehicle theft but also assault — in Downtown Dallas compared to the downtown area of Fort Worth are telling. Cowtown patrols its city center with a dedicated neighborhood police unit that works with private security guards.