Dallas activists request DOJ investigation of city police department

The summer of protest in 2020 should have been reason enough for the federal government to look at every police department in the county with a microscope to see how they are conducting their business. America had watched Black body after Black body be beaten, brutalized, blamed and besmirched for far too long and society at-large was well beyond the tipping point. Unfortunately, police brutality is as rampant as ever and the fight against injustice must continue. Fortunately, people are still doing the work.

According to CBSNews, an activist group from Dallas, Texas called Mothers Against Police Brutality have drawn up a formal complaint requesting that the United States Department of Justice open an investigation into the Dallas Police Department citing years of violence and conspiracy by officers and their superiors. The group described Dallas as “a city that prioritizes hiding disturbing trends of police violence from public view.”

According to an analysis by the group, independently confirmed by CBS News, 49% of Dallas police shootings involved Black residents between 2003 and 2017. In cases when the victim was unarmed, 59% of people shot by police were Black. In Dallas, 24% of the population is Black.

The group also cites specific incidents of deadly violence perpetrated by the police like the case of 21-year-old Genevive Dawes. Dawes was shot 12 times by former DPD officer Christopher Hess in January 2017. Hess worked for DPD for 10 years and was investigated 10 times for excessive force for 42 misconduct complaints says CBS. A grand jury indicted Hess for aggravated assault by a public servant but he was ultimately found not guilty despite being fired by DPD.

Hopefully, after November 5, we’ll have a new administration in the White House that will press the line on the Dallas police and every other department and sheriff’s office that practices abuses of power.