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Earlier this summer, law enforcement leaders in Dallas said were the highest the city has seen in a decade. They鈥檙e expecting 228 by the end of the year. In one of case, police charged a man with 9-year-old Brandoniya Bennett who was shot in the head while sitting in her home on Aug. 14, reports The Dallas Morning News.
Now, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson is creating the Task Force on Safe Communities the growing violence.
Alan Cohen, head of Dallas nonprofit , will be on the task force, and says it鈥檚 necessary, in addition to police action, to make Dallas safer.
鈥淲e are waking up to tragedies in our community, and there鈥檚 nothing more important than making sure that the streets of Dallas are safe for our children,鈥� Cohen says.
But he says addressing public safety is complex.
鈥淚t requires an approach where you鈥檙e gonna combine the best deep-data analysis with the lived experience of community members that feel like their streets are not safe right now,鈥� Cohen says.
He also says it鈥檚 important to be solutions-oriented; he says the news media, in particular, focuses too much on the problem, especially the projected statistic of 228 homicides by the end of the year.
鈥淲hen we read headlines 鈥� we run the risk of using data to admire the problem,鈥� Cohen says. 鈥淲e know that we have a safety issue 鈥� that鈥檚 the reason we have a task force. But we can鈥檛 only use data to tell us that we have a problem. We also have to use data to show us what is a path forward.鈥�
Cohen says he understands that people may be concerned whether the task force will actually find that path. But he says the task force, and his participation in it, isn鈥檛 merely a political gambit; he says he鈥檚 genuinely determined to find solutions. And he says he鈥檒l use his expertise on poverty to try to do so.
鈥淲e know that there鈥檚 a deep intersection between crime and poverty,鈥� Cohen says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a whole host of issues that we can get to before a crime or an offense ever takes place.鈥�
Written by Caroline Covington.
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