The Dallas Police Department, established in 1881, is the principal law enforcement agency serving the city of Dallas, Texas.
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Organization
The department is headed by a chief of police who is appointed by the city manager who, in turn, is hired by the Dallas City Council. The city manager is not an elected official.
Primary responsibility for calls for police service are seven operations divisions based on geographical subdivisions of the city. Each operations division is commanded by a deputy chief of police. The divisions are designated Central, Northeast, Southeast, South Central, Southwest, Northwest and North Central and operate from facilities which are referred to as substations. Each operations division's geographical area is further subdivided into sectors which are composed of beats, each of which is normally patrolled by a uniformed officer or officers in a marked squad car. Calls for service are received primarily through the city's 9-1-1 system which is answered by a city-operated emergency communications center. Each substation also has an investigative unit with detectives who are assigned cases of burglary and theft which are committed within the area covered by their division.
Other crimes are investigated by specialized investigative units including the Child Abuse Squad, Family Violence Squad, Narcotics Division, CAPERS Robbery Unit, CAPERS Assaults Unit, CAPERS Homicide Unit, Forgery Squad and a Computer Crimes Team.
A specialized Tactical Division includes a SWAT Operations Unit, Mounted Unit, Canine Unit, Helicopter Unit and an Explosive Ordnance Squad. The SWAT Operations Unit was featured on a reality series for the A&E Network in 2006 entitled "Dallas SWAT".
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History
Line of duty deaths
According to The Officer Down Memorial Page, between 1892 and 2011, 80 members of the Dallas Police Department died in the line of duty. The best-known instance was the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit by Lee Harvey Oswald, approximately 40 minutes after Oswald allegedly shot President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
Other notable deaths include the murder of Officer Robert W. Wood on November 28, 1976, which was later examined in Errol Morris' documentary, The Thin Blue Line. Additionally, Senior Corporal Victor Lozada, a motorcycle officer in the Traffic Division, was killed on February 22, 2008, while serving as part of an escort to Senator Hillary Clinton's motorcade near downtown Dallas for a presidential campaign event; Senior Corporal Lozada's funeral was attended by over 4,500 police officers as well as Senator Clinton. Most recently, on January 6, 2009, Senior Corporal Norman Smith, an 18-year veteran, was shot and killed while attempting to serve an arrest warrant.
Misconduct
Killing of Santos Rodriguez
In July 1973, two Dallas police officers investigated a vending machine that had been burglarized of eight dollars. Early in the morning of July 24, two children, Santos and David Rodriguez were taken from their home and brought to the scene of the crime. There, in order to scare twelve-year-old Santos Rodriguez into confessing, Officer Darrell L. Cain, after thinking he had emptied his service revolver of all its bullets, fired it at the boy. The second time he pulled the trigger, the gun discharged killing Santos Rodriguez who was still handcuffed. Though Cain was arrested and indicted soon afterwards and was still in jail pending bond, violence broke out. Darrell L. Cain was found guilty by a jury in November 1973 and sentenced five years in prison. He served half of it. The City of Dallas apologized to the Rodriguez family forty years later.
Adams investigation
The department was criticized for the conviction of Randall Dale Adams who was prosecuted for murdering Officer Robert Wood and was given the death penalty. Adams admitted being in the vehicle that was stopped by Officer Wood but stated that another person in the car was the shooter. Both suspects were arrested but the investigation identified Adams as the trigger man. A Texas appeals court set aside the murder conviction of Adams, who spent 12 years behind bars, and ordered a retrial. The appellate judges found that Dallas County prosecutors had suppressed evidence and knowingly used perjured testimony to obtain a conviction against Adams for the 1976 slaying. The Dallas County District Attorney decided not to re-try the case based on the length of time since the original crime and Adams was released.
Robert Powell
On March 18, 2009, NFL player Ryan Moats's mother-in-law, Jonetta Collinsworth, died from breast cancer. Moats, his wife Tamisha (Collinsworth's daughter) and other family members rushed to Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas, when they were informed that she was close to death. After driving through a red light, Moats was stopped by police officer Robert Powell who delayed him for more than 10 minutes outside the hospital's emergency room, allowing the rest of the family to leave, even after Moats's ordeal was corroborated by a nurse in the hospital to Powell. Powell even drew his gun at Moats during the incident. By the time Moats reached Collinsworth, she had died. Moats questioned whether race could have played a factor in the interaction due to the nature and tone of the officer's remarks to the family; When asked if he felt if Officer Powell be fired, Moats said, "I really don't know. All I know is what he did was wrong. I mean, he stole a moment away from me that I can never get back. I'm really not the judge on what should happen to him. I think maybe his superiors and the Dallas police should handle what should happen to him." Officer Powell issued an apology to Moats. Police officials investigated Powell's actions; he was placed on administrative leave but later resigned from the department. After Moats' incident with Officer Powell, former Cowboy Zach Thomas acknowledged that Powell was the same officer who handcuffed and jailed his wife Maritza after she was pulled over for making an illegal u-turn in July 2008.
Fake drug scandal
Beginning on December 31, 2001, the local ABC-affiliate, WFAA, began broadcasting a series of investigative reports alleging that hundreds of pounds of cocaine and methamphetamine seized by undercover officers of the DPD Narcotics Division during 2001 were actually not illegal substances. The subsequent "fake drug" scandal led to dismissal of over 80 drug cases by the Dallas County District Attorney's office, multiple investigations, the indictment of three current or former DPD narcotics officers, the release of defendants (many whom were falsely accused Mexican immigrants) who had pleaded guilty to cases where later investigation revealed no illegal drugs were involved and the prosecution of multiple informants that had been used to make cases that were subsequently dismissed. In 2003, the Dallas City Manager fired Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton, due in part for his Department's lack of oversight of the Narcotics Dept. officers involved in these fake drug arrests. He sued the City of Dallas over that firing but his case was dismissed with prejudice in 2005. Many of the 25 victims of the false arrests and wrongful prosecution won Federal Civil Rights Violations lawsuit settlements and actual jury case awards against the City of Dallas. One attorney who sued the city on behalf of what was a large percentage of Mexican immigrants who spoke little English, said, "the total cost could climb to as much as $8 million once all 25 cases are resolved."
Ronald Jones beating
In December 2009, Dallas police officers received word that two white men were fighting in the downtown area. Failing to locate the described men, Officer Matthew Antkowiak discovered a black man crossing the street and made a pedestrian stop of him which turned into a scuffle. Other officers then joined in. The man, Ronald Jones, ended up spending fourteen months in jail on various charges. When Jones' defense attorney viewed video tapes of the beating, he believed that the police reports had been falsified. The City contended that while the reports were inaccurate and incomplete, this was attributed in part to Officer Antkowiak's inability to accurately relate the events to the officer that did the actual report (Officer Antkowiak claimed to have suffered a closed-head injury during the incident that aggravated a prior confirmed injury). Mr. Jones was released and in March 2014 awarded $1.1 million by the city to settle the matter. Officer Antkowiak retired on an unrelated medical claim and is no longer employed in law enforcement. He has set up a private firm to train policemen. No other disciplinary action was taken against any official.
Attacks on Dallas police
2015 shooting
On June 13, 2015, a man shot at Dallas police headquarters. The headquarters building in Cedars and several patrol cars responding to the attack sustained damage from gunfire, but no civilians or police personnel were injured. The suspect, James Boulware, died after being struck by sniper fire from Dallas SWAT officers.
2016 shooting
On July 7, 2016, four DPD officers, along with one DART officer, were killed and nine other officers were wounded by an armed man in Dallas, Texas. The shooting started during a rally in downtown Dallas about the recent officer-involved shootings, resulting from the deaths of black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota.
Rank structure
Members of the department who are captains and below are protected by the city's civil service system with promotion based on the results of competitive examinations. Senior corporals typically are officers who serve either as field training officers in the Patrol Division or who serve as detectives in one of the department's investigative units. The rank captain has not been in use since 1992, however, those who were captains were allowed to keep it as well as those who were demoted from any chief position, as chiefs once demoted must retain their last non-command rank. There is currently only one captain remaining as of 2016. Majors, deputy chiefs and assistant chiefs are appointed by the chief of police without examination and do not hold civil service protection for these ranks. Division commander and bureau commander are non-civil service titles based on assignments. Members may hold both assignment titles and civil service or appointive ranks. On October 4, 2012, Chief David Brown created a new major rank in between captain and deputy chief.
Demographics
Breakdown of the makeup of the rank and file of DPD as of April 2011:
- Male: 83.24%
- Female: 16.76%
- White: 55.41%
- African-American/Black: 24.54%
- Hispanic: 17.15%
- Asian: 1.73%
- Native American: 0.78%
- Other: 0.39%
In popular culture
The Dallas Police Department is portrayed in the 2010 Fox drama series, The Good Guys, and the 2010 TLC reality TV series, Police Women of Dallas.
The Dallas Police Department (Homicide Unit) is portrayed in the A&E Network's documentary series entitled The First 48.
The department's SWAT team is chronicled in the A&E Network's documentary series Dallas SWAT.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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