Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson welcomes DPS help amid crime spike
DALLAS - A recent spike in violent crimes including murder is making headlines in Dallas a new mayor moved into city hall.
Mayor Eric Johnson visited Good Day Tuesday to talk about the problem and his plan to keep the city safe. He said the Texas Department of Public Safety is sending troopers to Dallas to help patrol the streets.
"DPS is pretty experienced in supplementing local law enforcement. There's actually a lot of inter-jurisdictional cooperation when it comes to law enforcement that people don't really know about. We don't talk about it often. Because it's made the news we're sorta talking about it now, but they've done it in San Antonio, same thing. You probably didn't even hear about it up here," he said.
Johnson said several years ago, San Antonio saw a spike in violent crimes and DPS quietly went in and helped the police department drop the crime rate by 20% in six months to a year because of the added police presence.
"It's something that we've seen done a few times before around the state. It's not all that uncommon," he said.
Another one of Mayor Johnson's focuses is reducing childhood poverty. He's hosting the annual Dallas Mayor's Back to School Fair on Aug. 23 at Fair Park. Families can register for free school supplies at the event.