Dallas

Police Seek Public Support to Locate 1-Year-Old's Killer

Neighborhood councilman says cooperation between police and community must overcome fear

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Police returned Monday to Valentine Street in South Dallas where a 1-year-old child was murdered early Sunday.

Rory Norman was weeks away from his second birthday when he was shot by someone who fird a gun through the window as he slept around 3:30 a.m.

“I’d say that this is probably the hardest thing I’ve heard since taking this seat,” said neighborhood city council member Adam Bazaldua. “To see how deliberate this heinous act was is extremely alarming and something that we take very seriously in this city.”

Bazaldua Monday repeated a call from Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall Sunday asking people with information to come forward.

“Something as deliberate and personal as this crime doesn’t happen on a whim," he said. "And it doesn’t happen without collaboration on some level. There’s definitely people that are talking or have talked and there’s someone that knows something. The problem is that there’s fear."

That fear was evident on Valentine Street Monday where several residents declined to speak about the murder.

Police were back because a man who lives two doors up the street from where the child was killed was suspected of a completely unrelated family violence incident in East Dallas early Monday morning.

Neighbor Terry Lockridge said that resident was not connected to the boy’s death.

“I had talked to him early this week about not getting in trouble no more. Seemed like it didn’t catch on,” Lockridge said.

Lockridge said Sunday that he was shocked to hear what happened to Rory Norman, who he knew as a jolly child at the house next door.

Friends and relatives said Sunday they had no explanation for the crime.

It comes after a 2019 in which Dallas recorded more than 200 murders, the most in more than a decade.

Bazaldua said greater investment is needed in underserved neighborhoods like South Dallas in youth programs and other support to overcome fear and build cooperation between police and the community.

“How many lives do we have to loose” Bazaldua said. “If we as city leaders don’t start taking responsibility in the role that we play in where our public safety injustices lie, we are doing a disservice to the people that we serve. There is an obvious correlation of high violent crime to high impoverished communities.”

Anyone with information regarding in Rory Norman’s murder should contact Detective Andrea Isom, at 214-671-3701 or via email at andrea.isom@dallascityhall.com.

Crime Stoppers will pay up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest and indictment. Call Crime Stoppers at 214-373-TIPS (8477), 24 hours, 7 days a week.

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