DALLAS – The city of Dallas is considering reducing the qualifications to become a Dallas police officer.
But some Dallas City Council members are pushing back on the idea.
Right now, to become a Dallas police officer, one needs either college credit, experience in the U.S. Armed Forces or a TCOLE peace officer license.
Under the new proposal, there would be no experience required.
For eight years, the Dallas Police Department has struggled to recruit and retain police officers.
The latest strategy recommended by the city’s civil service board is to allow high school graduates or those with GED to apply with no college credit or experience necessary.
“We are competing for limited talent with limited interest in a sworn position,” said Jarred Davis with the city’s civil service department. “It’s like sales; the more you put in the funnel, the better results you will have hiring quality candidates on the back end.”
Right now, there are several paths to becoming a Dallas police officer:
“To me, it is not what you are studying, but are you maturing? Having other experiences? You have to show up, earn your grades, work with the instructor,” said Councilwoman Gay Donnell-Willis.
While applicants can transfer from another department with no college credits, Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn said their experience with that department would be their qualification.
“I’m just going to say it. I don’t like this proposal at all,” she said. “I don’t want us to lower our standards for police officers.
While Austin and San Antonio only require a high school diploma or GED, cities like Arlington and Plano require a bachelor’s degree.
“This is what the civil service board has supported, and we think this would be a step in the right direction for expanding our reach for recruitment,” Davis said.
Mendelsohn disagreed.
“We are not talking about any kind of job here that is anyone off the street doing a file clerk job,” she said. “We are giving someone a gun and the ability to kill other people. I won’t support lowering it.”
The public safety committee said there were still too many questions to move the proposal forward to the full city council for a vote. There will be another briefing likely in December.
In the hands of Chris Wolston, even the most ordinary object — a chair, lamp or credenza — becomes something more whimsical, playful and quirky.
The artist has built a stellar reputation in the design world for his anthropomorphic rattan chairs (complete with bums and feet). Yet the array of pieces on display in his first solo museum show at Dallas Contemporary reveals there’s much more to his oeuvre.
Displayed across four catwalks, reminiscent of a fashion show or drag ball, are sculpted chairs in terra-cotta adorned with metal insects, a bronze coffee table cast from leaves found in the artist’s garden and chairs inspired by the gestural limbs of supermodels. Handwoven carpets from Morocco on the walls are interspersed with video works highlighting Wolston’s process filmed by his husband, the filmmaker David Sierra. Together, they recall a fantasy world of objects both functional and sculptural.
“I always find that through humor, there’s an interesting entry point for people — it breaks down a barrier,” says artist Chris Wolston. “And I was always drawn to furniture as a medium because it’s accessible, it’s egalitarian.” Dallas Contemporary
Wolston has been walking the tightrope between craft and art with a humorous twist since he made his first terra-cotta chairs in 2014. Drawn to the relationship between materiality and everyday life, he naturally embraced furniture as his medium.
“I started working with the (contemporary design gallery) The Future Perfect, and then we started doing these body chairs for a chair show,” he says. “I always find that through humor, there’s an interesting entry point for people — it breaks down a barrier. And I was always drawn to furniture as a medium because it’s accessible, it’s egalitarian.”
Having initially studied glassmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, Wolston earned a Fulbright to study pre-Columbian ceramics in Colombia, prompting him to settle his studio in the city of Medellín. He found his entry point into raw ingredients by working with natural terra-cotta clay found in the mountains surrounding the city, and has since cycled through bronze, rattan, anodized aluminum and shearling.
Curated by Glenn Adamson, former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Profile in Ecstasy highlights a decade-plus of work that led Wolston to discover the throughlines behind his various collections, whether they be nods to fashion and nature, Spanish modernism or subtle surrealism.
“These themes that exist in an artist’s practice emerge when a new collection emerges,” Wolston says. “It’s interesting to see how collections made at different times with totally different materials and thought processes at play resonate with one another.”
Chris Wolston: Profile in Ecstasy is on view at Dallas Contemporary from Nov. 7 through Feb. 1, 2026.
The vehicle belonging to a Dallas woman who has been missing for over a year was found this week, according to police.
The Dallas Police Department said 88-year-old Myrtle Polk’s vehicle was found in the 5600 block of South Lancaster Road, near Five Mile Creek, on Tuesday. Her body was not in the vehicle.
DPD said search teams will deploy in the area to continue the search for Polk.
She was last seen in early June along Indian Creek Trail, driving her Lexus sedan. At the time, a Silver Alert was issued, given her age and medical history, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Polk is a devout member of her church, according to her family. When she didn’t show up for service on June 9, 2024, they said they knew something was wrong.
Also affectionately known as “Mama M” or “Aunt Myrt,” Polk is living with dementia. But her niece Tawana Watson said — as late as the day before — the family did not indicate that anything was wrong.
“She was a very good driver, she knew where she was,” Watson said last June. “I talked to her that Friday [and] she was in her right mind.”
Watson does not believe the matriarch left home on her own.
“She was such a trustworthy person, I believe that Aunt Myrtle met somebody that she trusted, she let them [into her home] and they hurt her,” she continued.
Myrtle Polk is approximately 5-foot-2 and 120 pounds, with white hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call 911 or the Dallas Police Department at (214) 671-4268.
A four-alarm fire at First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, destroyed its historic, red-brick sanctuary last year, and reconstruction of the edifice won’t be completed until Easter 2028. In the meantime, the destruction has taught the nonprofit institution a lot about its workplace as it has navigated the crisis.
Staff members were “scattered” after the fire, and as of August, permanent power still hadn’t been restored to the church offices, said Ben Lovvorn, First Baptist’s senior executive pastor. So, keeping everyone updated and encouraged during the rebuilding effort has been a priority.
“We’ve been very purposeful about communicating with our staff — and our congregation — so that they know and understand what’s going on, and that they are a part of the process,” he said. “At other organizations, this situation would lead to tremendous turnover, but our entire team has stayed intact. That [in turn] has provided consistency and encouragement to our 16,000 church members.
“Another lesson we’ve learned is making sure you have the right people in place so you’re able to handle a crisis like this,” he continued. “Finding those right people — and getting them in the right seats on the bus — is key to tackling whatever obstacles you’re presented with along the way.”
Fortunately, First Baptist has had those team members in place for a while. That’s because the staff has a biblically based, “shared faith and shared calling” that gives their work purpose, Lovvorn said. “Whether they’re a minister or work in our accounting department or in the facilities department, they’re part of something greater.”
That greater meaning is emphasized regularly, whether through monthly all-staff leadership luncheons — they brought in Babe’s Chicken for the one in August — or at “staff chapel,” where workers step away from the daily grind and pray together. Throughout its more than 155 years in downtown Dallas, “there have been good times and difficult times” for First Baptist, Lovvorn said. “But God has always been faithful in providing for us and seeing us through every season.”
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