Dallas Residents Told to File Police Reports Online As 911 Calls Soar Amid Lack of Officers

Brittany M. Hughes | June 22, 2023
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Dallas residents are being told to file certain crimes online instead of calling 911 because apparently, the city is so lacking in police officers and so overloaded with crime that the cops can’t possibly respond to every call for help.

And so, as of July 3, city police officers will no longer physically respond to calls for things like motor vehicle, burglaries, reckless damage, graffiti, minor car, car accidents with no injuries in which the vehicle is still drivable, or theft and shoplifting under $2,500. So if your home is robbed and the thieves make off with less than $2,500 bucks worth of stuff - or, probably a more likely scenario, if you are a store clerk and a thief comes in and hauls off with less than $2,500 worth of merchandise - you’re no longer able to call 911 and have a cop show up at your door to handle the situation.

Instead, Dallas PD is now telling people to go online and file a report, and they will get to it when they have time.

Police say this new system is because they simply don’t have enough staff to respond to all the calls they’re getting and have to prioritize more serious crimes over things like people, looting shops, busting into cars, or generally wrecking stuff. Dallas started the year with a 35% uptick in homicides and a 15% increase in assaults, so I guess your fender-bender or shop burglary is just gonna have to wait behind all the people getting murdered.

According to police data, police are already ranking calls with a system of 1 to 4. In 2022, data for "Priority 1" calls, which are considered serious emergencies, showed officers responding in about 10 minutes.

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On the other hand, for "Priority 4" calls, which are the things that people are going have to report online from now on, it took the police an average of 574 minutes to respond. For those who don’t math very quickly, that’s about 9.5 hours.

Long time to wait on the side of the road if someone booped you at a stoplight and you need a police report to file with your insurance claim.

Unfortunately for victims of supposedly "minor" crimes, there simply aren’t enough cops to respond. The department says it needs at least 600 more patrol officers to be at full staff, and they aren’t even close to filling the gap. In fact, Dallas is so hard up for officers, they’re trying desperately to retain what ones they do have. With more than a quarter of the Dallas police force currently eligible for retirement, the city is now offering cops with 28 years or more of experience an extra $40,000 to stay two more years.

And let me tell you, it is just a head scratcher why nobody is signing up to be a police officer, and why the ones we currently employ seem to be quitting or retiring in droves. After all, why on earth wouldn’t people want to put their lives on the line for low pay in a crime ridden area, where any and everything they do can be videotaped and slapped on social media, or twisted on the evening news and run through the court of public opinion or used by some politically minded bureaucrat to score partisan points, where the second that they try to apprehend someone of a socially protected persuasion they are doxxed and their lives ruined?

Why wouldn't anyone want to sign up for that? A true mystery for the ages.

In the meantime, best of luck with your break-in - someone will be with you shortly.

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