Crime Watch Groups Say DPD Is Making It Harder To Stay Informed
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Graffiti, a stolen bicycle, a burglarized garage… those types of crimes might make the news, but chances are if those crimes happen on your street you probably won't know about it. Crime watch groups fill the void by providing information to neighbors. But in Dallas, some groups say they can no longer even find out about a lot of crimes.
Crime watch leader Ellen Childress sifts through Dallas crime reports. She's looking for anything she needs to warn the neighbors about. "It might be theft. It might be criminal mischief. It might be kid stuff."
But over the last year, Childress says the job had gotten harder for her and other neighborhood groups all over the city.
Philip Mendershausen, a member of the Casa Linda Estates Neighborhood Association, agrees. "At some point, I realized I was being starved for information."
When Dallas police switched to a new records system last June, the details of crimes disappeared from publicly posted reports. So did any trace of sexual assaults and crimes involving juveniles.
Dallas City Council Member Lee Kleinman said sarcastically, "So if you were to ask a police officer, 'what's going on with that graffiti? I guess the answer is - what graffiti?"
Kleinman questioned police leaders at a public meeting Monday. Police told him that officials with the city attorney's office had advised them that they should never have been releasing the information in the first place.
"How many letters have we gotten from the AG 9attorney general) telling us we can't release that data? The answer is – none," Kleinman said, asking further, "How many complaints have we gotten that we released data in the past that we shouldn't have released? None. So it just seems like we're taking a very strict interpretation of these rules."
Some crime watch group members say the number of reports they see has dropped drastically and is limiting their effectiveness. Childress explained, "It just took away one of the tools that's very basic to what we do."
Community leaders, like Philip Mendershausen and others, say the lack of information keeps citizens in the dark. "Forewarned is forearmed," he said. "And I think people who live in the neighborhood have a right to know what's going on."
The majority of neighborhood group members who spoke with CBS 11 News aid they don't need to know every detail of crimes, but they do at least want to know what crimes occurred, when they happened, and in what general area.
Council member Kleinman says he plans to meet with the city attorney's office to see if there's any way to get more information out to the public.
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