‘No silver bullets’: After a violent weekend in southern Dallas, residents prepare to act

After a 30-year-old woman was fatally shot inside her car in the parking lot of an east Oak Cliff strip mall, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn King Arnold took what she called a “death walk.”

She followed a trail of Shaketta Johnson’s blood on a neighboring sidewalk, and only then did it hit her, the weight of what unfolded in her district the morning of April 13.

“It just pains you to think that she was here, she was here,” Arnold said. “This was where she took her last breath.”

Arnold told this story Thursday evening to a crowd of more than 50 people who gathered at the Paul Laurence Dunbar Lancaster Kiest Branch library for a community engagement meeting, after officials said residents were left “reeling from a weekend of violence.”

Less than nine hours after Johnson was slain, 20-year-old Mavion Goldman was killed and two teenagers were wounded in a burst of gunfire near the intersection of Overhill Lane and Easter Avenue, also in east Oak Cliff.

Citywide, Dallas has lost at least 63 people to acts of violence in the first quarter of 2024. That’s down 27.6% from the same period last year. But Arnold, repeating a sentiment frequently shared by police officials, told her constituents even one life is too many.

According to Dallas police statistics Arnold shared, 13 of the year’s victims have been killed in her district. Of those 13, 11 victims were Black and two were Hispanic, Arnold said.

The toll in years prior followed a similar trend. Of the 75 murders in District 4 since 2022, 57 victims were Black, 16 Hispanic, one was white and one was unknown. Arrests made in connection with those killings showed 27 suspects were Black, nine were Hispanic and two were white, Arnold said.

“We’re losing our heritage,” Arnold said. “We’re losing our power.”

The community has to make a decision, she emphasized, about whether it cares enough to be vested in the situation. Either residents want to work in tandem and be safe, or they don’t, she said.

“We can work harder to try to give our communities a better chance of surviving,” Arnold said. “What are we willing to do?”

Outside looking in

Untruan Grant, 46, tried to look at the violence from the perspective of a shooting victim or one of their family members. That’s a different dynamic, he said, than for someone on the outside to comment on it and say, “We need to stop this.”

“The area itself … is a jungle,” Grant said. “It’s not a neighborhood. The area is a traumatic area. When you’re living in a jungle, what is your survival kit? And what’s in it?”

He said people from the ages of 13 to 17 have guns because of their environment. He noted he didn’t see any young people or teenagers at Thursday night’s meeting, but said residents can try to see themselves in those affected most by the violence and ask: Now, how can I help?

“When we can begin to be able to see that, then we can change,” Grant said. “Am I still attached to the young? Have I detached myself? If we begin to be attached with them, then we can support them, we can help them, and we can use our lived experiences to help them through the trauma.”

‘Where’s the energy going?’

Luther Young, 56, recalled a time during his childhood in Dallas when he was able to release his energy by playing sports and practicing karate. He’d go to the gym every day for free.

Now, Young said, he can’t go to recreation centers because they require costly memberships. Students don’t have many aftercare programs after school, either, he added.

“So what do they do? Where’s the energy going?” Young asked, as other residents clapped in support. “Their energy’s going to something that they’re learning from somebody else.”

Many times, kids are raised by “the streets instead of raised by their parents,” he told The Dallas Morning News after the meeting. Young said adults need to find out what the kids like to do “and then bring them up with them,” talking on their level instead of “straight to them.”

Beyond the words

Stacey Kelley, 51, said community members have a bond that can go further than police and politicians.

“You all do a fantastic job, but it’s bigger than you,” Kelley said to the police officials who attended the meeting. “We came here to do some work. We’re not here just for show.”

He told The News the meeting was needed with “everything that’s going on.”

“We’re not going to sugar coat it,” Kelley said. “Each individual can’t do their own thing, just like the police department — they do their thing. But we are stronger in numbers. And we can definitely make a change if we collectively work together.

“Beyond what was stated inside, the networking is continuing outside. It’s beyond the words now. Now it’s a call to action.”

Me vs. We

Dallas Independent School District Trustee Maxie Johnson said when families quarrel, kids are forced to make a choice: They can either jump the person they’re told to at school or fight all night at home.

Students might choose the fight at school instead, he said, counting on someone to break it up quickly.

“I want you to think about what these kids are facing,” he said.

Johnson said the violence unfolding in schools is also a result of a statewide funding problem. Through a bill passed in the last legislative session, the state gave each campus $10 per student and an additional $15,000 for safety expenses, which Johnson said isn’t enough.

Teachers need raises, security should be better prioritized and schools need more resources, Johnson said, referencing an April 12 shooting at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in southeast Oak Cliff that wounded one student. The student’s classmate, Ja’kerian Rhodes-Ewing, 17, was jailed shortly after on aggravated assault and unlawful carrying of a weapon charges.

Students staged a walkout Monday, calling on officials to do more to keep them safe.

“There are no silver bullets with this,” Johnson said.

So, what is Johnson willing to do? “What I’ve been doing — working with the community,” he said.

“This is not a ‘me’ problem. This is a ‘we’ problem.”