Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson touts safety success at summer celebration

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson hopes that Saturday’s celebration at UNT Dallas turns into an annual custom.

Households, metropolis workers and Dallas law enforcement officials gathered on the college’s South Dallas campus for the fruits of the mayor’s Summer season of Security program, which offers free and low-cost packages for youth to maintain them engaged when faculty’s out.

This summer season, about 200,000 folks visited the town’s swimming pools, in keeping with numbers supplied by the mayor’s workplace. Town’s Parks and Recreation Division gave out about 6,000 teen all-access passes, which grant youngsters free admission to Dallas cultural sights.

Johnson touted this system’s success in the course of the celebration, as violent-crime charges have been decrease within the metropolis this summer season, the time of 12 months when crime charges usually spike.

The mayor mentioned he thinks different cities will begin to discover the success of Dallas’ strategy to lowering crime.

“Lots of people have taken the strategy to both throw extra money at your police division, otherwise you’re going to be doing issues in the neighborhood,” Johnson advised The Dallas Morning Information. “We mentioned these two issues needs to be taking place concurrently.”

The newest Dallas police information reveals that violent crime by Aug. 22 is down 2.9% from the identical interval final August. Total, violent crime is about 4.4% decrease in 2022 than it was this time final 12 months.

Town accepted funding for 250 further law enforcement officials final fall. The following proposed price range additionally offers a lift for the police and fireplace departments, and for parks and recreation and libraries.

Police Chief Eddie García spoke extremely of the help the police division receives from the town. Violence fell by about 9% throughout his first 12 months on the job.

“Nothing occurs by chance. Right here in Dallas, we have now a plan to cut back violent crime. We’ve got a plan to have interaction with our group,” García mentioned.

The celebration featured a battle of highschool drum strains — received by Skyline Excessive College — cheerleaders, music performances and loads of free meals.

Between performances, group leaders took the microphone to talk on public security.

State Sen. Royce West, a Dallas Democrat, advised the group he’ll proceed efforts to ban folks below 21 from shopping for assault weapons when the Legislature convenes in August.

“Don’t get me flawed, I’m Second Modification all the way in which, however we have now obtained to make sure that we have now affordable rules on the usage of these weapons,” Royce mentioned.

Johnson mentioned he hopes the mayors that comply with him in workplace will proceed to carry the occasion, which he known as a celebration of the group’s success in holding crime low.

“Do I believe that violent crime will go down each single 12 months in the summertime? I hope it does,” he mentioned. “However even when we will simply preserve it from spiking prefer it usually does in most cities, that might be a hit.”