DALLAS — Dallas murders are up from this time last year.
The summer months are traditionally when crime goes up. This year, so far, there are 17 more murders than this same time in 2021.
It has some residents concerned.
Mario Cruz spoke before the Dallas City Council about being shot during a robbery.
"I’m a surviving victim of gun violence in Dallas," said Cruz.
The bullet penetrated his heart.
"My heart stopped three times," he said.
That attack was in 2019 but he says he’s just as worried about violence today as he was three years ago.
"We know there are going to be challenging times. We know we face some challenges," said Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia.
Garcia says in the past 10 years there are more demands on the department.
He says 911 Priority 1 calls have increased by more than 50% since 2012, while the number of officers has decreased by 10%.
"That is a challenge, but again as a police department we have to find a way to do what we can do with what we have," said Garcia.
He says fewer officers is impacting response times.
Since last year response times are up in every category.
The average response time for Priority 1 calls in 2021 was 7.83 minutes. This year, it’s 8.68 minutes.
Priority 2 calls almost doubled from an average of 27.97 minutes to 48.47 minutes. Priority 3 from 109.60 minutes to 242.18 minutes, and Priority 4 from 151 minutes to 306.28 minutes.
Garcia says he is considering creating a civilian unit where civilians can be trained to respond to low-level calls, like property thefts, that aren’t urgent to help with some of those response times.
"So they would alleviate those lower priority type calls to free up officers where we can," said Garcia.
Garcia says he will deploy more officers to apartment complexes where he says more than 27% of homicides are occurring.
He also says if there is a silver lining, it's that violent crime is still down across the city by 2%.
He hopes officers can hold the line through the more violent months of the year.