In the wake of multiple shootings that occurred during the Fourth of July holiday weekend across the country, the Dallas police chief addressed gun violence as both a local and nationwide problem.
There were a total of 17 mass shootings that left 100 injured and 18 people dead between Saturday and Tuesday, according to statistics from the Gun Violence Archive.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, one of these mass shootings took place in Fort Worth, where a total of 11 people were shot shortly before midnight on Tuesday. Three people died in the shooting, which occurred in the Horne Street area of the Como neighborhood.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia sat down with WFAA to discuss the incident in Fort Worth.
“We feel the city of Fort Worth’s pain. We understand what that is because we’ve lived through it as well,” said Garcia during the WFAA interview. “Our hearts go out to the community of Fort Worth, and to the men and women of the Fort Worth Police Department.”
Chief Garcia said that gun crime has gotten out of hand and law enforcement nationwide must do everything possible to help reduce the number of shootings.
“Gun crime is an epidemic. Not just in the metroplex, but in the country and we have to continue to stay the course and let our communities know we are never leaving and continue to do what we do,” said Garcia to WFAA.
Bill Ferguson, president of the Maryland Senate, shared a similar sentiment while addressing the massacre in his own state, a shooting in Baltimore that saw 28 injured and two killed on Sunday. The senator said these events affect the entire country and improvements must be made.
“This is a societal problem that we’re dealing with, a mass shooting where a disagreement turns into 28 people shot. This is insanity,” Ferguson declared, according to ABC News. “This cannot be the society that we are expected to live in. We have to do better.”
Garcia explained to WFAA that the Dallas Police Department is trying to “do better” by getting ahead of crime. He emphasized that his officers were executing search warrants even on the Fourth of July.
“The proactive nature of this police department is what keeps up afloat,” remarked Garcia. “For every drug house that’s hit [by warrants for] weapons and drugs, there are aggravated assaults and murderers that were stopped because of that.”
Crime statistics in Dallas have not been updated since May 3 due to a ransomware attack against the City of Dallas’ computer servers, but over the first four months of 2023, the City reported a 23% increase in murders year over year.
One possible reason the crime rate has risen is the lack of available officers.
Mike Mata, president of the Dallas Police Association, has previously said that 4,000 officers are required to actively manage crime, but Dallas PD is currently employing only about 3,100.
Despite the recent shooting in Fort Worth, the city’s downtown area sees less crime than downtown Dallas, as previously covered in The Dallas Express. Fort Worth has dedicated police patrols and private security monitoring its city center.
