Dallas City Hall
Dallas HERO, the group behind the controversial charter amendment requiring the Dallas Police Department to maintain a force of at least 4,000 officers, alleges the city isn’t complying and is threatening to take the city to court.
Dallas voters approved Proposition U, a charter amendment requiring the city to maintain a minimum of 4,000 police officers, in November. As of February 7, 2025, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) had 3,169 officers, Dallas HERO said in a notification Monday.
“Prop U is not a suggestion. It’s part of the city’s charter, placed there by the will of the voters. Compliance is not optional. And, City Hall has been flagrantly disregarding this legal mandate since it passed last November,” said Damien LeVeck, Executive Director of Dallas HERO. “If Dallas leaders do not imminently make meaningful, good faith efforts to comply with the city’s charter, we are prepared to take them to court. Our understaffed police department is fighting enough lawlessness on our streets. We cannot and will not tolerate it at City Hall.”
Upon the delivery of the notification letter, the City Council has 60 days to reach compliance or litigation can be triggered, which is May 30th, 2025.
In late February, the Dallas City Council set a new hiring target for the Dallas Police Department of about 300 officers this fiscal year, which gets the department closer to meeting the requirements of Proposition U. At that time, interim police chief Michael Igo said the new targets would be difficult to reach and would likely mean taking some officers off patrol, at least temporarily, for the training program.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my team is working extremely hard to fill recruit classes,” Igo previously told the city council. “If it was as simple as snapping my fingers to get the recruits in we would do that in a heartbeat.”
