Dallas police chief hosts Deep Ellum safety meeting

DALLAS - People who live and work in a Dallas neighborhood won praise for their efforts to fight crime. They are using innovative weapons like cameras and Facebook.

Deep Ellum is a neighborhood that is famous for its restaurants, bars and nightclubs. But people live there too. And on Tuesday night, Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall met with the residents to talk about safety.

Currently, the city of Dallas has a handful of on-duty officers working in the neighborhood on different shifts. In addition to that, there’s an extended neighborhood patrol consisting of 10 off-duty officers hired by the Deep Ellum Foundation.

Since the program began in May 2017, the off-duty officers have made 130 arrests. About 25 of them were made just last month.

"I think the approach to crime is what we're doing all over the city, and that is working alongside of our community of our business owners,” said Chief Hall. “Recognizing that it's not just our responsibility. It's everybody's responsibility. Working together."

Despite the additional attention, violent crimes are still a problem. On June 14, two people were attacked and robbed near the Bomb Factory nightclub. And in October, police arrested a man suspected of sexually assaulting several women.

“I think the biggest concern is as the neighborhood becomes more popular, crime increases,” said Mark Kaplan, who lives and works in the area. “It will be interesting to hear what he chief has to say about that.”

“I think that people will feel better about being able to be heard,” said Ivan Pugh, owner of Bucky Moonshine. “I think that the chief being new is going to be open to ideas, but she has a huge city that all has the same issues.”

Surveillance cameras captured video of a daylight break-in on Sunday.

The recent break-in was posted on a Facebook group called Deep Ellum/ Uptown Officer’s Corner. The page was started in April by Officers Tyler Prothro and Ryan Lowman. The closed group has quickly grown to over 1,200 active members. Many of them are police officers who are actively communicating with citizens.

“They’re actually communicating with us on this page. If something happens I can throw it on Facebook and now 1,200 eyes see it. If something happens in Deep Ellum, they can throw it on Facebook and I can get notified immediately,” Officer Lowman said.

Pugh said he supports the effort law enforcement is making, but he’s still frustrated he and other business are continually victimized. He would like to see more being done to address not only violent crimes but those that make it increasingly difficult for businesses to stay open.

Police emphasize that the Facebook group is not a replacement for 911, but it clearly puts a lot more eyes and ears working together in the fight against crime.