When Keep Dallas Safe first started, the city was under siege. Rioters seemed destined to burn downtown to its foundations, and city leaders worked to “reimagine the police force” by cutting much-needed funds from the police budget. Truly the threats were within and without.
Keep Dallas Safe immediately began a campaign to get the money back for the DPD and demanded the city do something about the unrest. Through the efforts of our team of volunteers, we were successful in refunding the police budget and making sure Dallas had a plan to deal with violent protestors.
Recently, the Dallas City Council made an ill-informed decision to remove an asked for $10 million from the overtime budget and place it in a separate fund. Despite their own consciouses prompting them to seek confirmation from city employees that it “was not defunding the police,” and regardless of insistence that the vote was “not political,” the politics of wishing to hamstring the DPD reared its ugly head again. KDS immediately went to work.
Together with KDS leadership, our tireless volunteers and supporters made thousands of phone calls and sent just as many emails in response to this renewed attack on public safety. We are happy to say that the many hours of hard work paid off, and the vote was reversed in a 12-3 decision to put the money back into the DPD overtime budget. As a bonus, our yearlong demand for more officers was answered with funds to hire almost 300 additional officers and increased pay for 911 personnel.
While this is another great victory, it is only one more in a succession of battles that we must keep fighting to Keep Dallas Safe and attain our goal of making it the safest city in America. Dallas must continue to add hundreds more officers every year just to get back to where it was ten years ago and to keep up with the burgeoning population. KDS will keep pushing for a total of 2000 more officers added within five years. KDS will keep reminding city leadership to do their duty to uphold the safety of the city. KDS will not rest until every person in Dallas lives free from the fear of violent crime.
If you would like to join our efforts, please visit www.KeepDallasSafe.org or email [email protected].