Daniel Comeaux reflects on 1 year as Dallas Police Chief

Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux celebrates one year on the job

As he celebrates one year as Dallas Police Chief, Daniel Comeaux sits down with FOX 4's Shaun Rabb to discuss his successes on crime initiatives and Texas governor Greg Abbott's threats to withhold funding if the city does not up its immigration enforcement.

DALLAS - Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux has been on the job for one year, and he spoke about the past 365 days with FOX 4's Shaun Rabb in a wide-ranging interview.

"Super exciting. So happy that I put in for the job, so happy that the city manager chose me," Comeaux says. 

Learning curve as police chief?

"I wouldn't say there's been a big learning curve because law enforcement is law enforcement, and leadership is leadership," Comeaux said. "As the chief position, it's more important about leadership than it is about being boots on the ground running the streets. I'm not running the streets anymore, so it's about leadership."

Crime-stopping initiatives

One of Comeaux's biggest successes has been with crime-stopping initiatives in different sectors of Dallas, including Operation Clean Sweep. Last month, the Dallas Police Department announced 61 arrests of violent criminals as part of the operation.

"The operations that we've been doing in partnership with the U.S. Marshals, I think, is super important to Dallas," Comeaux said. 

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Dallas Police arrest dozens of robbery fugitives

Dallas Police announced the efforts of Operation Clean Sweep today, which involved the arrests of over 60 wanted fugitives related to aggravated robberies. FOX 4's Shaun Rabb has more.

"We're putting bad people in jail, and also I feel because we're doing that, in certain areas, like response time, they've gone down. Every single month over the last eleven months, response times have gone down."

Officer-involved shootings

There have been eight officer-involved shootings with Dallas Police in 2026. Does Comeaux think that's due to people being more willing to risk confrontation with law enforcement?

"Let's just hope it's something that's just happened in these first four months, and it's not a trend, but the officers are doing a really good job of protecting everyone in the community," Comeaux said. "Unfortunately, sometimes it comes to gun violence between a suspect and an officer which it's unfortunate."

Politics on the job

Dallas police's response to Abbott's immigration order

The department says it has revised an immigration policy, hours ahead of a deadline imposed by Governor Abbott. Last week, the governor threatened to pull millions in public safety funding from the city, saying a years-old policy ran afoul of a contract that the city signed. In response, the city says its new policy clarifies that Dallas police are not prohibited from inquiring about immigration status or cooperating with federal authorities. The revised policy does say officers will not stop a person, for the sole purpose of determining immigration status

Comeaux says he didn't expect to deal with politics every day as much as he has as Dallas Police Chief. 

"One of the things that I try to do my very best is not to get involved in politics. I don't understand some of the things and some of the things it's above me."

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Dallas officials to review policies after Abbott threat

Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux is now speaking out after the threat to pull millions in funding.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently threatened to pull $90 million in funding if the city does not comply with state ICE policies.

"Look, we're going to be in compliance with the state. I have a team coming up with the necessary general orders where we can be in compliance," Comeaux tells Rabb. 

"But understand, the Dallas Police Department is not immigration. We're going to do everything to answer all the 911 calls and take care of everyone that lives in Dallas."

Future of the Dallas Police Department

When Comeaux became Dallas Police Chief, the city was under a mandate from voters to add nearly 1,000 more officesr. Comeaux says recruiting for that initiative is going well.

"We're one of the few departments that can say we have more officers right now in 2026 than we did 13 years ago and that's an amazing stat."
As for the department's future? Comeaux sees DPD being known as the best in the country.

We're going to keep going to the top. My goal is for us to be known as the No. 1 police department in the United States."