Dallas Police Have Seized 200 Guns as Summer Campaign Aims to Stem Violence

A summertime Dallas police operation targeting specific neighborhoods and criminal activity, including gang and gun-related violence, has made a dent in the number of violent crimes, which spiked in the first five months of this year, Acting Chief David Pughes said Friday.Dallas is trending with double-digit percentage increases in robberies and aggravated assaults this year over the same time last year. Homicides spiked in May -- police reported 40, a one-month tally unseen since the early 1990s.But in recent months, violent crimes have ticked down. Month-over-month totals show violent crime dropping in July by 5% and in August by 3.5%. The summer crime initiative is driven by data, which includes using detailed crime maps to help commanders deploy resources and target enforcement. “We are going to the locations where our criminal intelligence analysts are telling us where the violence is occurring, where the offenses that involved gangs, guns and drugs are concentrating,” Pughes said. Dallas police leaders met with The Dallas Morning News editorial board on Friday. The prescheduled meeting took place two days after a 9-year-old girl was killed Wednesday evening when a 19-year-old gunman in a dispute with another man over a rap song fired into the wrong Roseland Townhomes apartment in the 3500 block of Munger Avenue, near Cityplace Tower. The shooting came about six weeks after Zacchaeus Banks and Gregory Horton III, both 17, were killed at the same complex when someone opened fire from a passing car at people playing dice.  Continue reading...