| UNFAIR PARK | Don’t Believe the Hype In Eagle Pass, law enforcement has no reports of migrants killing residents’ pets. BY PATRICK STRICKLAND L ast Tuesday, Fox News ran an es- pecially alarming headline about migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into Eagle Pass. The way the report put it, locals had started arming themselves, in part, because, according to at least one resident, migrants had “killed pets” in town. The Fox report said that migrants were “killing dogs, steal- ing from homes and prompting [the] Texas border town residents to feel unsafe.” Problem is, local law enforcement offi- cials say they have received no reports spe- cifically identifying migrants as pet killers in Eagle Pass or Maverick County, where the city is located. “We haven’t had anything like that,” a public information officer at the Eagle Pass Police Department said by phone. “We haven’t had anything reported to us that I’m aware of.” Similarly, a clerk at the Maverick County Sheriff’s Department told the Observer she couldn’t locate any reports of the alleged pet killings. “Nothing’s coming up,” she said by phone. She said one recent report involved an “unknown male” stabbing a dog, but it didn’t allege that he was a migrant. The Fox report cited only a woman named Cindy, whose surname wasn’t provided, say- ing that “in order to steal something,” mi- grants “killed the dogs.” She also appeared in a video that accompanied the text article. Cindy wasn’t quoted as specifying which dogs, though, and she added that mi- grants “are like robbing stuff or killing ani- mals to eat.” More troubling still, the story’s headline appears to state the alleged problem as fact: “Migrants killing dogs, stealing from homes prompts some Texas border town residents to arm themselves.” By email, Jon Michael Raasch, the re- porter whose byline appeared on the story, explained that Cindy and “several Eagle Pass residents” had made the claims. He di- rected the Observer back to his original story. No doubt, Cindy had made those claims; she’s on video. But you have to wonder why no such alleged crimes were reported to law enforcement. Since Joe Biden became president in Jan- uary 2021, Republicans around the country and conservative media outlets have drummed up fear over the humanitarian cri- sis on the border. In March last year, Texas Gov. Greg Ab- bott launched Operation Lone Star, a con- troversial border crackdown that has cost billions of dollars and has seen Department of Public Safety officers and National Guard deployed to south Texas. Abbott and Texas Republicans have regu- larly decried the border crisis as an “inva- sion,” language that echoes the manifesto published by the white nationalist shooter who killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in August 2019. Killing pets isn’t the only inflammatory claim conservatives have pinned on mi- grants. Last year, Abbott claimed that the Biden administration had released “hun- dreds of illegal immigrants who have CO- VID into Texas communities.” Those comments came shortly after Ab- bott had lifted Texas’ mask mandate, a move that prompted critics to accuse the governor of hypocrisy. ▼ CRIME CRIME FALLS T DALLAS PD SAYS ITS EFFORTS HAVE DECREASED “VIOLENT STREET CRIME” BY 12% IN THE LAST YEAR. BY JACOB VAUGHN he Dallas Police Department says it’s seeing results a year into its violent crime reduction plan. The violent crime reduction plan was created by DPD, the city and University of Texas at San Antonio criminology and crim- inal justice professors Michael Smith and Rob Tillyer. The two professors showed members of the Public Safety Committee last Monday how the implementation of the plan has affected crime in the city. They said overall violent crime (murders, robbery and nonfamily violence-related aggravated as- Wikimedia Commons Conservative media outlets have joined Republicans in demonizing migrants. sault, for instance) is down by nearly 12%. But street-level violent crime has seen some of the biggest changes since the crime plan was rolled out. “The crime plan itself is primarily de- signed to treat street-level violence,” Smith told the Public Safety Committee. “As crimi- nologists, we define street-level violent crime as murder, robbery and nonfamily vi- olence-related aggravated assault. Those are primarily shootings that don’t result in someone dying.” Compared with two years ago, street- level violent crime has dropped 18%. Since last year, there’s been a 12% drop. However, murders saw a slight uptick. The number of business robberies has also dropped nearly 17%, and individual robber- ies have decreased by about 21%. The plan has had a smaller effect on aggravated as- saults, which saw only a decline of nearly 5%. “We look at crime in two ways. We look at criminal incidents, which may involve more than one victim, and then we also look at it from the victim level,” Smith said. The number of victims of street level crime has decreased by about 8% since last year. When it comes to the violent crime hot spots, which are seeing more police patrols under the plan, the DPD says it asks itself certain questions about these parts of town to measure the crime plan’s success. Officials want to know what patterns crime follows in the city with and without intervention, if changes are natural or the result of the steps taken in the violent crime plan, and how these efforts could affect ar- eas surrounding violent crime hotspots. The department found that on average violent crime declined more than 50% in the hot spots it’s been working compared to three months prior. These effects lingered even after DPD stopped working some of these hotspots. Surrounding areas also saw decreases in violent street crime. But DPD Chief Eddie Garcia said he’s not taking a victory lap yet, and that there is plenty the department needs to work on. “We are not doing a touchdown dance,” Garcia said in a written statement. “There is still work to be done. But as the numbers are showing, the plan is showing positive results and crime is down.” He and the department received praise from city officials like Mayor Eric Johnson and City Manager T.C. Broadnax for the re- sults of the crime plan a year into its imple- mentation. Johnson said in a statement, “While we have significant work still ahead of us, we have proven that by working to- gether and putting public safety first at ev- ery turn, we can build safer communities.” ▼ HOUSING AFFORDABLE HOUSING TOOK CENTER STAGE AT A RECENT STATE SENATE COMMITTEE HEARING. BY KATE PEZZULLI HOPE FOR HOUSING steps to help ease the state’s shortage of af- fordable housing. The optimism came on the heels of a hearing last week by the Texas Senate Committee on Local Government. “After we walked out of that meeting, we A feel that our chance of passing pro-housing, pro-growth bills, pro-affordability bills, have skyrocketed,” Nicole Nabulsi Nosek told the Observer by phone. “We were all over the moon. We did not expect it to go that well.” Nosek is board chair of Texans for Rea- sonable Solutions, which was among a group of nonprofits and advocacy organiza- tions offering testimony to the committee. Sen. Paul Bettencourt, the committee chair- man, wrote on social media that he expects the Legislature to act on housing when it convenes in January. “Much testimony about problems in Aus- tin housing plus issues of fairness and trans- parency across the State,” Bettencourt wrote on Twitter on last week. Texans should expect “bills to be filed” in the Legis- lature, he said. In recent months, many Texans have struggled with rising rent costs, which those in the investment property industry say are due in large part to growing property taxes and the swelling costs of building and main- taining those properties. Texans for Reasonable Solutions is a non- profit organization focused on finding solu- tions to the state’s housing shortage. The group advocates for removing barriers to housing development, finding ways to better use existing funding for housing and legisla- tion that could help lower housing costs in Texas. Nosek said that the organization is pri- oritizing three main legislative solutions: updating outdated laws, incentivizing ap- proval of new housing along with popula- tion growth and removing time-consuming delays. >> p4 t least one advocate for affordable housing in Texas was feeling opti- mistic that the Legislature will take 1 3 dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com | CONTENTS | UNFAIR PARK | SCHUTZE | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | MOVIES | DISH | MUSIC | CLASSIFIED | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 SEPTEMBER 22–28, 2022
