Downtown Dallas resident robbed while walking home

There is a cry for action from a Downtown Dallas woman after she was attacked while walking home early Tuesday morning.

The attack happened near the corner of Main and Ervay. The woman had a friend with her to walk her home, but she says she was attacked anyway by three men.

Red Ledbetter is scuffed up and bruised but is in no way silenced.

“I don't want it to happen to me again,” she said. “So I'm here and I won't shut up until somebody answers us.”

Around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, Letbetter was leaving the Press Box Grill on Ervay Street. As she neared Main Street with a friend walking her home, she says three men robbed them. Two of them were on rental bikes.

“And he comes running at me and literally just runs into me barrel-chested and grabs my purse,” she recalled.

Ledbetter and her friend were scuffed up. She says all three attackers ran off.

“All I'm thinking is there isn't a cop to be seen,” she said. “And it isn't because they don't want to be there. It's because there aren't enough of them to cover the area. Why don't we have any police officers.”

Ledbetter to her question to a crime watch meeting Tuesday night in Downtown Dallas. It's a meeting she's attended before. She is a past board member of the Downtown Dallas Neighborhood Association.

She and other downtown residents asked what it will take for change to happen.

The attack follows a number of high profile incidents. In 2016, a woman was attacked in the parking garage Davis building. Last year, a man slashed two women in the Wilson building not far from Tuesday's attack.

“As you know, we do have a staffing shortage. And it’s across the division across the city,” said Dallas Police Major Rob Arredondo. “So it requires us to be a little more aggressive in what we're trying to do.”

Letbetter says it's not the rank and file officers fault. She just wishes there were more of them.

“It happened to me and I'm the one who is supposed to be aware,” she said. “I'm the one who is supposed to be the advocate. I'm the one who is supposed to fundraise for the DPD, and I'm the one who wants to come to meetings and say I'll help.”