Dallas leaders call for change after targeted attack on police officers

DALLAS – Standing in the shadow of a police car placed in honor of life fallen officer Darron BurksCommunity leaders representing Dallas’ South Side have reached out to express support for the police while calling for change in the community.

Police said 30-year-old Corey Cobb-Bey shot and killed 46-year-old Burks in Oak Cliff on Thursday evening. in a targeted attack as he sat in his marked patrol car. Two other officers who later came to his aid and were also shot are recovering.

“Officer Burks was executed,” Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said at a news conference last week. “… Our officers were attacked simply for the uniform they wear and the brave and honorable work they do.”

Addressing a crowd of about 100 people who gathered to support Burks Tuesday outside the South Central Patrol Division along West Camp Wisdom Road, Sen. Royce West asked community members to show more support for the Dallas Police Department, including the officers who serve in his district, which includes the southern sector of Dallas.

“The officers that go out in the morning, some of them have families. Most families want them to go home at night. In this case, Officer Burks clearly goes to another home, far beyond this location. And I hope that just because he’s African-American, we in this community recognize the importance of supporting our officers as they serve our community,” he said.

West stood surrounded by other civic leaders and members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, of which Burks was also a member.

“We need to be sure, family, that his life was not in vain,” he added.

Nearly 200 officers died in the line of duty between 2021 and 2023, according to a special report from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program released earlier this year. The report, titled Officers killed and attacked while performing their duties, 2023 special reportpresents preliminary numbers of law enforcement officers killed and assaulted in 2023, with additional context about officers who were killed or assaulted between 2014 and 2023, based on data voluntarily provided by law enforcement to the FBI’s UCR Program.

Additional reports from the U.S. Department of Justice found that Texas had the highest number of officer-involved fatalities by state or territory in 2023. A total of 39 officers were shot and four of them died, according to incident data collected for the state.

In an interview with CBS News Texas on Sunday, Interim Mayor and District 8 Councilmember Tennell Atkins said the shootings underscored the need to identify and address deeper issues in the community.

“We need to allocate more resources to determine the cause and find a solution to the problem,” he said, expressing sadness over the family’s death.

“We have to deal with (what happened). We have to deal with it,” Deputy Mayor Atkins said. “We have so many people on the street who look like me, African-Americans, who need help. We have to understand (through) this tragedy here, we have to help other people,” he added.

The Dallas City Council Public Safety Committee is scheduled to meet in late September.