Police departments in Dallas, Fort Worth and other metroplex cities are recruiting from the same pool of candidates. Some are looking for new ways to stand out.
FORT WORTH, Texas — The Fort Worth Police Department released a diss track Friday, taking a playful jab at the Dallas Police Department.
The song, accompanied by a music video, parodies Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-winning hit “Not Like Us.”
Each department is engaged in a friendly-but-fierce battle for new police officers. Recruiting competition stiffened in November, when Dallas voters approved a city charter amendment mandating a much larger police force.
“We love them all,” Officer Terrence Parker, who plays Kendrick Lamar’s role in the video, told WFAA. “We have their backs just as they have ours, but sometimes we’ve just got to step up and show them who Fort Worth is.”
The rap beef began when the Dallas Police Department purchased a billboard ad on South Freeway, about one mile from the Fort Worth Police Department’s headquarters. The bulletin displays Dallas police officer’s starting salaries underneath the headline, “We are hiring!”
“In the beginning, it was like, ‘Okay, Dallas. I think you just went a little too far,'” Parker said, smiling.
Officer Bradley Perez, a department spokesperson, hatched the idea to respond to the billboard with a diss track. He wrote the lyrics and directed the video, which closely mirrors Kendrick Lamar’s original.
Parker, a FWPD recruiter, accepted the lead role and recorded the song the next day, he said.
Though Dallas caught the strays, Fort Worth police say their message is really for someone else: the 20-somethings, including those who understood and appreciated Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance.
“It targets the audience we’re looking for,” Parker said. “Our goal is recruiting.”
Fort Worth police aim to replace scores of retiring officers with younger people who can “grow with the department,” Parker added.
Last year, Fort Worth’s city council and the police union signed a new contract that raises officers’ pay. Police early in their careers will make about $10,000 more each year.
The salary bump brings Fort Worth’s police pay closer to the metroplex median and average. Cowtown officers had made about 12% less than their peers for about three years, Assistant City Manager William Johnson told the council in September.
In November, Dallas voters approved a city charter amendment requiring the city to have at least 4,000 police officers. To comply, the city would need to hire more than 900 new officers.
Dallas city leaders are frantically trying to meet voters’ demands, though they’ve compromised and rolled back some near-term hiring targets. In 2025, the city aims to hire 300 new police officers.
A hiring spree of that magnitude would still affect other metroplex police departments. Those agencies recruit from the same talent pool.
Fort Worth wants to stand out, Parker said.
“We try to be better than the rest,” he continued. “Above and beyond.”
Dallas police have not yet released a rebuttal to Fort Worth PD’s diss track. The department issued a brief statement Monday.
“Stay tuned,” a Dallas police spokesperson said.
