Wednesday marks the first day of work for new Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia. Garcia takes over for former Chief Renee Hall who left at the end of 2020.
But as Garcia starts his new opportunity, he enters a city that has many problems to solve. Among them, a high crime rate. Dallas had more than 250 murders in 2020 alone.
One of the people killed was Domonique White. White was a father of four. He had just dropped off his kids at school when he was shot at an apartment complex in the Redbird neighborhood in Dallas.
His mom Angela is now working to reduce gun violence in Dallas and has high hopes for the new leader of DPD.
“With this police chief we ask that he come in focused, this is not a business, these are real people, these are lives,” White said.
She said he needs to work to build relationships and trust across the diverse communities in Dallas.
“You have to get down there and understand the culture of the environment, not so much the people themselves, but the culture that they have to survive in, and that’s when you will start mending and blending a conversation level, because now we have established respect with an understanding,” White said.
“He’s going to have to come in with his boots running and he cannot do it by himself. It didn’t take one day to get us where we were, it took lack of planning and not paying attention to the signs that were already on the wall,” White said.
Jazsmin Sanders is the mother of a 4-year-old who was shot in Oak Cliff in November. Hit in the leg, she lost four liters of blood, but survived. Police have made no arrests.
“My daughter she’s blessed by the grace of God,” Sanders said.
She believes that there needs to be more police presence in Oak Cliff.
“That area needs to be policed and patrolled,” Sanders said. “All the bad areas where it’s terrible at it needs to be policed. These kids are innocent getting hit and I just don’t understand it.”
Both Sanders and White are hopeful that the new chief will be a good fit for the department and the city of Dallas.
“I want to welcome the new police chief and his family to Texas,” White added.