CRIME IS RISING

The buzzword today is “21 Century Policing”. What we know about “21st Century Policing” is that it doesn’t work. Murder rates in Dallas have doubled since the low point in 2014. That has been the general experience in big cities all over the country. The minority communities it was intended to help have suffered the most from it. In Dallas alone, the cost is an extra 140 lives a year, most of them minority. We need to keep whatever good may have come from it and go back to 20th century policing.

In a plea to defund the police, County Judge Clay Jenkins made the statement, “the police are still killing us.”. Many believe that. Let’s look at the facts. In 2019, Dallas police officers fired their weapons a total of 11 times. Think about that. Out of over three thousand officers, over the course of an entire year, only eleven fired their weapons. In 2020, only four officers fired their weapons. One person was killed. Is what Judge Jenkins said true? Are the police still killing us? Contrast those numbers with the 254 murders in 2020, and ask yourself: Is the problem police brutality, or criminal brutality? Would we be better off with fewer police; or, with more police?

This shameful rhetoric demoralizes the police, makes minorities afraid to call the police, discourages minorities from joining the police force and emboldens the criminals. The Dallas City Council should present the truth and stand up for the police department.

Two years ago, every council member ran on a promise to increase the number of police officers. Last year, the wind shifted and a number of them supported defunding the police.

If elected, I will work to RE-fund the police. We need an additional 500 officers to bring us back to 2014 staffing levels. With these extra officers, I expect the police to be pro-active and not re-active. Two summers ago, the DPS sent 15 officers into South Dallas because there had been 40 murders in a month. They were there for two months, arrested felons, took illegal guns off the street and drove down the murder rate. That is pro-active policing. Preventing crime instead of just investigating it. The police need to put a stop to street racing. It’s not that hard, but it won’t stop if we just ignore it. Eight police cars and sixteen officers could block all the streets at the intersection, ticket all the bystanders blocking the street, arrest the drivers and tow the cars. If they did that every time someone advertised a street race, they would soon stop. The tickets should pay for the operation. The police need to confront the homeless when they trespass, are publicly intoxicated, shoplift or create a public nuisance. (See What to do about the Homeless in another blog. ). The police also need to have a better plan for dealing with riots. Standing by and watching is not the answer. They need a system so that people that loot and destroy property can expect to be either arrested at the scene or photographed and arrested later.