“I’ve said before, you don’t order a Dallas police officer off of Amazon,” said Council Member Gay Donnell Willis of the difficulty of increasing DPD hiring numbers.
DALLAS — The Dallas City Council’s public safety committee agreed Monday to recommend the highest hiring level yet for Dallas police officers, although still far short of the target mandated by recently passed Proposition U.
Committee chair Cara Mendelsohn began the meeting recommending that the hiring level for the next fiscal year be set at 400 new officers. The current annual hiring level is set at 250.
“We simply do not have enough officers and we are overworking the officers we have,” Mendelsohn said. “We have to be thinking a little bit differently because the rest of the city knows this is a crisis. Somehow in this building, people don’t get that.”
In order to meet the mandate of Proposition U, the Dallas Police Department would need to hire nearly 900 new officers. DPD leadership, at the the January public safety committee meeting, said the number of officers stood at 3,127.
DPD reported hiring 253 officers last fiscal year while losing 191.
“We are trying to do what the citizens said,” Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins said, citing budget constraints and the number of officers assigned to the DPD recruitment team. “No need to have a kneejerk reaction to get 400 today.”
Interim Police Chief Michael Igo told councilmembers that increasing his recruiting team would mean, at least temporarily, less officers on the streets. On a proposal from Council Member Kathy Stewart, the committee decided to recommend a compromise goal of 325 new hires instead.
“I’ve said before, you don’t order a Dallas police officer off of Amazon,” said Council Member Gay Donnell Willis. “I’d rather be realistic with our public while we work to obtain the optimal number of officers.”
“That’s promising. I’m optimistic that the attitude at city hall is changing,” said Damien LeVeck, representing the Dallas Hero group that sponsored Proposition U and other Hero initiatives. “That’s hopeful and we want to see more of that.”
The interim police chief says his team is recruiting nationwide and doing everything they can to find the officers they need.
“I think we should be recruiting in our state and this area which is reflective of our communities,” Igo said. “And all I can say is that we’ll work very hard to try to get to that 325 mark.”
The proposal for establishing the new hiring mark of 325 now goes to the full city council for approval.
