Dallas Police Department (DPD) Chief of Police Eddie Garcia sat down with The Dallas Express earlier this week and addressed the city’s significant rise in murders compared to last year.
As of May 1, 95 people were murdered in Dallas, with DPD clocking a roughly 23.4% increase year-to-date, according to a department report.
Chief Garcia acknowledged the alarming spike in criminal homicides, arguing that they can be connected to the number of criminal offenses being committed.
“There’s been an uptick in murder … that we’re still trying to catch up from the first quarter of the year, but certainly, you know, that’s something that you can’t reduce … without reducing incidents,” Garcia told The Dallas Express.
While other categories of violent crime are down since the beginning of the year, murders remain on the rise despite Dallas’ Violent Crime Reduction Plan, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
When The Dallas Express informed Chief Garcia that numerous residents had expressed concern to the news outlet over violent crime and the state of public safety, he said, “Really, one life is too many, but any city’s sense of violence does not revolve around murder.”
“It revolves around gun-related aggravated assault because, as I’ll say, if murders were down, that means lives aren’t being lost, which is great, but if I saw incidents on the rise, then I would get nervous,” Chief Garcia said, referring to the dip in aggravated assaults year-to-date.
The police chief went on to tout the relative progress made by DPD in reducing some offense categories and how more substantive gains could possibly affect Dallas’ out-of-control murder rate.
“Oftentimes narcotics and illegal activity is leading to some people losing their lives as well … so we just need to continue to reduce the incidents, and what I think we should be proud of as a city is that we’ve continued to reduce the violent incidents that lead to murder,” Chief Garcia said to The Dallas Express.
The police chief ended with a message to the City:
“We need to respect human life.”