Angela White is saddened her son’s homicide was only one of the first in a very violent 2020. Her son Domonique was shot and killed in the Redbird area of Dallas on January 15th. There have now been more than 200 homicides in the city this year alone.
“My son is not a connection to the present violence that is going on, but he is a victim now,” White said. “He had a name, he had a life, he left footprints, but now he’s a victim.”
“Domonique was my only child, he was a father and a family man,” White said. “For me to have lost my only child to childish behavior it’s devastating, it’s still devastating to me and the violence didn’t just end with my son. It continued and progressed.”
Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata says it will take the public’s help to solve some of these crimes.
“These crimes are not committed in a bubble. Some people know who committed these crimes, some people know who committed these shootings and these murders and they need to help the Dallas Police Department. They need to pick up that phone and help their own communities,” Mata said. “If not they’re just going to go out there and look for more victims. And that victim, that victim is going to be your brother, that victim is going to be your mother, father, your sister, your wife or your kids.”
As of November 9th, there were 204 homicides in Dallas this year, compared to 173 at this point last year. But it’s aggravated assaults that are way up –more than 30% in the city.
“Just remember an agg assault, for the most part, a lot of times, is just somebody who has a bad aim,” Mata said. “It’s usually somebody who intended to commit a murder either 1) they missed, or 2), they did hit the complainant and didn’t kill them.”
Mata said in addition to all of the crimes happening in the city, the department does not have the number of officers it desires. Mata says ideally they’d have 3,700 to 3,800. Right now they have about 3,100.
“To be honest with you, we can’t keep up,” Mata said. “Not if the crime is going to keep going like this.”
Angela White knows change may take years, and all of us play a role in fixing the problem.
“It starts in behavior, it starts in parenting. It starts in communities with leadership coming down to those communities, as we would say in my neighborhood, come to the trenches,” White said.
She just hopes your family never experiences her pain.
“If we choose to say nothing, then everything continues to happen,” White said. “If we choose to ignore a problem, then it will always be a situation.”
The related video below is from Dec. 2019.