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The fatal shooting of a 1-year-old child in South Dallas has brought new calls to curtail rising crime, even as the mayor and police chief have promised decisive action.
Rory Norman, who would have turned 2 this month, died after a gunman opened fire on the home where he, his mother and other family members were sleeping about 3:30 a.m. Sunday.
A 20-year-old uncle also was shot multiple times, but police have said he is in stable condition. Other relatives in the home in the 2900 block of Valentine Street were not wounded.
Police, who have provided no information about a suspect or motive in the attack, shared no new details about the investigation Monday.
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The shooting came days after Dallas police Chief U. Reneé Hall unveiled a crime reduction plan for 2020, following a year in which the city recorded more than 200 homicides.
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After Rory’s death, the chief said her department needs a chance to prove her plan will work.
“We can critique later,” she said. “Let’s execute the plan. Let’s reduce crime in the city of Dallas. That’s what we’re about. In 2020 — we’ve always been about it — but we are aggressive and deliberate today.”
Dallas activist Jeff Hood was unimpressed with the chief’s plan, saying he saw “smoke and mirrors” but not a clearly outlined strategy to push back against crime.
“She’s had an opportunity to make real changes, and we just haven’t seen it,” he said Monday.
He said the chief seemed to be putting on a show at her news conference after Rory’s death and deflecting attention from the fact “a child, a 1-year-old child was slaughtered in our city.”
Hood said he knows crime can’t be eradicated, “but you can create an atmosphere of safety, protection, community policing that can push back.”
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Tabitha Wheeler-Reagan, a South Dallas community leader, said too much of the burden to fix the city’s crime problem has been placed on Hall.
“You’re asking her to solve a problem that was here before her,” she said. “When it’s a murder going on here, there and everywhere, or some type of violence everywhere, you can’t put it on the police chief.”
She said she worries that proposals expected this week from Mayor Eric Johnson’s public safety task force also won’t help.
“If our mayor has his way, we’re going to put a Band-Aid [on the issue] and we’re going to put a one-size-fits-all crime reduction plan, and it’s just not realistic,” she said. “It does not work that way.”
Wheeler-Reagan, a lifelong Dallas resident, grew up in the Bonton area where Sunday’s shooting took place. She said civic leaders need insight from residents who know what’s going on to address each neighborhood’s unique problems.
Johnson convened the task force in August to address the root causes of crime after 9-year-old Brandoniya Bennett was fatally shot in her family’s townhome in Old East Dallas.
On Sunday, Johnson found himself reacting to yet another child’s death.
“This is intolerable, and as the father of two young boys, I am both saddened and outraged,” he said on Twitter.
The mayor has called Hall’s crime-reduction plan — which aims to reduce violent crime citywide by 5% — a start but says he wants to see more aggressive goals.
The chief’s plan focuses on tactics including intelligence gathering and improving coordination among agencies, but activists say poverty and other underlying factors of crime need to be addressed.
Bubba Washington Jr., a community activist in South Dallas, said residents are working to improve their communities but need more assistance from the city, including job opportunities.
“Most of those people that are living in that neighborhood that are trying, they don’t make a whole lot of money,” he said. “So they’re reaching into empty pockets to try to do something constructive for the neighborhood.”
Adam Bazaldua, the City Council member who represents the district where the shooting occurred, agreed the city has to do its part.
“We as city leaders have our own unique role in the public safety ecosystem,” he said. “And that is to address it from the angles that will combat crime from a more indirect standpoint than thinking that we have to only address it through our law enforcement.”