Dallas Police Department

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The Dallas Police Department, established in 1881, is the principal law enforcement agency serving the city of Dallas, Texas.

Dallas Police Department

None
Established	1881
Jurisdiction	Municipal
Sworn	3,121
Stations	7
Police boats	0
Helicopters	4
Chief	David Kunkle
Commissioner(s)	N/A

1 Organization
2 Rank Structure
3 Line of duty deaths
4 Fake Drug Scandal
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Organization

The department is headed by a chief of police who is appointed by the city manager who, in turn, is hired by the Dallas City Council.

Primary responsibility for calls for police service are seven operations divisions based on geographical subdivisions of the city. Each operations division is commanded by a deputy chief of police. The divisions are designated Central, Northeast, Southeast, South Central, Southwest, Northwest and North Central and operate from facilities which are referred to as substations. Each operations division's geographical area is further subdivided into sectors which are composed of beats, each of which is normally patrolled by a uniformed officer or officers in a marked squad car. Calls for service are received primarily through the city's 9-1-1 system which is answered by a city-operated emergency communications center. Each substation also has an investigative unit with detectives who are assigned cases of burglary and theft which are committed within the area covered by their division.

Other crimes are investigated by specialized investigative units including the Child Abuse Squad, Family Violence Squad, Narcotics Division, Robbery Unit, Assaults Unit, Homicide Unit, Forgery Squad and a Computer Crimes Team.

A specialized Tactical Division includes a SWAT Operations Unit, Mounted Unit, Canine Unit, Helicopter Unit and a Explosive Ordinance Squad. The SWAT Operations Unit was featured on a reality series for the A&E Network in 2006 entitled "Dallas SWAT".

[edit] Rank Structure

Rank	Insignia
Chief
First Assistant Chief
Assistant Chief
Deputy Chief
Lieutenant
Sergeant	Three gold chevrons
Senior Corporal	Two silver chevrons
Police Officer	N/A

Members of the department who are lieutenant and below are protected by the city's civil service system with promotion based on the results of competitive examinations. Senior corporals typically are officers who serve either as field training officers in the Patrol Division or who serve as detectives in one of the department's investigative units. Members who are deputy chiefs and above are appointed.

[edit] Line of duty deaths

From May 24, 1892, to February 22, 2008, the Officer Down Memorial Page reported that there were 78 line-of-duty deaths of members of the Dallas Police Department[1]. The most well-known instance was the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit by Lee Harvey Oswald approximately forty minutes after Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The murder of Officer Robert W. Wood on November 28, 1976 was later examined by filmmaker Errol Morris in his documentary, The Thin Blue Line. Most recently, Senior Corporal Victor Lozada, a motorcycle officer in the Traffic Division, was killed on February 22nd, 2008, while serving as part of an escort to Senator Hillary Clinton's motorcade near downtown Dallas. Sen. Clinton was on her way to a presidential campaign event. Sr. Cpl. Lozada's funeral was attended by over 4,500 police officers as well as Sen. Clinton.

[edit] Fake Drug Scandal

Beginning on December 31, 2001, the local ABC-affiliate, WFAA-TV, began broadcasting a series of investigative reports alleging that hundreds of pounds of cocaine and methamphetamine seized by undercover officers of the DPD Narcotics Division during 2001 were actually not illegal substances. The subsequent "fake drug" scandal led to dismissal of over 80 drug cases by the Dallas County District Attorney's office, multiple investigations, the indictment of three current or former DPD narcotics officers, the release of defendants (many whom were falsely accused Mexican immigrants) who had plead guilty to cases where later investigation revealed no illegal drugs were involved and the prosecution of multiple informants that had been used to make cases that were subsequently dismissed[2]. On May 5, 2008 former Narcotics Division detective Mark Delapaz began serving a five-year sentence for making false statements in an application for a search warrant related to the scandal.[3]