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The Dallas police updated the city council’s Public Safety Committee on crime stats again today — and, once more, crime’s down in Dallas, save for residential burglaries. Those have increased from 9,686 in year-to-date 2007 to 9,739 thus far in ’08.
Homicides are down too, from 142 to 106 year to date. But there is this sidebar: The South Central Patrol Division went from one murder in 2007 to 29 in 2008 — because, until October 24, it didn’t exist. Rather, it bit off pieces of the Southeast and Southwest divisions and is a mammoth piece of real estate consisting of 32 beats spread across 54.9 square miles, and it accounts for “approximately 15% of total patrol work load,” according to the department’s FY 2007-’08 budget. Both the Southeast and Southwest saw decreases — 22 total — that would have been increases without the South Central division’s creation. Oh, and Tuesday’s now as dangerous as Wednesday, so let’s be careful out there. –Robert Wilonsky
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