Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 241, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 30, 2016 Page: 3 of 26
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LOCAL/STATE
3A
Denton Record-Chronicle
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Dallas deals with
surge in crime
Nationally recognized
r
♦
Sarah Wedding-
ton speaks at
Texas Woman’s
University on
Tuesday eve-
ning. Wedding-
ton is nationally
recognized for
her work on is-
sues affecting
women through
her many roles,
including attor-
ney, legislator
and presidential
adviser.
She also
represented
“Jane Roe” in
Roe v. Wade.
neighborhoods and bulk up
staffing on a 4 p.m. to midnight
shift — a time when police com-
manders say a majority of vio-
lent crime occurs. Others would
be placed on task forces concen-
trating on areas such as serving
domestic violence warrants,
Brown said, and more officers,
including top commanders,
would be assigned to foot pa-
trols.
Police and chief at
odds on how to
reverse spike
r
t;*-
,V.
By David Warren
Associated Press
DALLAS — Dallas is dealing
with a surge in violent crime this
year that has reversed a decade-
long decrease in killings and
prompted friction between the
city’s police chief and rank-and-
file officers on how to combat
the issue.
Dallas police reported this
week a 75 percent jump in the
number of homicides over the
same period last year, according
to The Dallas Morning News.
The increase has prompted a
broad debate on how best to al-
locate the department’s officers
and has caught the attention of
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who
has offered unspecified state re-
sources to help.
Police Chief David Brown
has suggested several potential
factors in the spike in violence,
from fewer officers to an unusu-
ally mild winter.
“There’s a seasonal connec-
tion to crime,” Brown said Mon-
day, according to the newspaper.
“When it’s warm, like the sum-
mer months, people are in the
entertainment districts, they
walk around more outside,
they’re at the parks, they’re on
the trails, they’re likely to be out
much later.”
The rise in killings includes
at least 17 so far this month;
there were five killings last
March. The number of aggra-
vated assaults and robberies also
are up.
Brown told a City Council
committee Monday hundreds of
Dallas officers would be reas-
signed to target high-crime
y
r,
But officers complained the
changes would disrupt their per-
sonal lives, and at least one po-
lice union called on Brown to re-
sign. Three of the other leading
police unions also complained
about the sweeping changes.
Brown and City Manager
A.C. Gonzalez released a joint
statement Tuesday saying
Brown “has heard his officers’
concerns.” The plan presented
Monday to the council panel
“was not sustainable over a long
period of time and it would put a
tremendous strain on our police
force,” Brown said.
Instead, Brown is calling for
a “study on staffing models, in-
ternal communications, re-
sponse times and best practices,”
and promised it will include
feedback from many on a force
that has more than 3,500 offi-
cers.
/
'l
%
/
Ranjani Groth/DRC
Man to be executed in daughters’ deaths
rest him. A ful-
ly loaded re-
volver
found in his
truck.
present Battaglia, who contend-
ed his court-appointed lawyer
abandoned him after the U.S
Supreme Court in January re-
fused to review his case, said in
an appeal to federal courts that
the man is mentally ill. Attorney
Gregory Gardner also argued
Battaglia was entitled to a re-
prieve so he could get a fair hear-
ing to determine if he’s incompe-
tent for execution.
But available evidence “does
not come close” to suggesting
Battaglia lacks an understand-
ing that he’s about to be execut-
ed and why he’s set for punish-
ment, the criteria the Supreme
Court has established to deter-
mine competency for prisoners
facing execution, according to
Erich Dryden, an assistant Texas
attorney general.
“His last-minute appeal
amounts to a fishing expedition,”
Dryden said.
Battaglia’s trial attorneys
called no witnesses during the
guilt-innocence portion of his
capital murder trial in 2002, and
a Dallas County jury deliberated
only 19 minutes before convict-
ing him. During the punishment
phase, jurors heard defense testi-
mony that Battaglia’s mental ill-
ness should convince them a life
prison sentence would be appro-
priate. They did not agree.
“To think a father could just
gun down his little girls, it was
just unbelievable,” Howard
Blackmon, the lead prosecutor
in the case, recalled last week. “It
was such a compelling case for
the death penalty.”
Evidence showed that at the
time of the shootings, Battaglia
was on probation for a 1999 at-
tack on his estranged wife Mary
Jean Pearle, the girls’ mother.
Ex-wife heard girls
cries in phone call
was
By Michael Graczyk
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE - Enraged
over his ex-wife going to police
about his harassment and likely
arrest, John David Battaglia
used a May 2001 visit with their
two young daughters to avenge
his anger. As their mother help-
lessly listened on the phone to
one of the girls’ cries, he fatally
shot them both at his Dallas
apartment.
Hours later, the former ac-
countant was at a nearby tattoo
shop getting two large red roses
inked on his left arm to com-
memorate 9-year-old Faith and
her 6-year-old sister, Liberty.
When he walked outside, it took
four officers to subdue and ar-
On
Wednesday,
the 60-year-
old is set for le-
thal injection. He’d be the 10th
inmate executed this year na-
tionally, the sixth in Texas.
“I don’t feel like I killed
them,” Battaglia told The Dallas
Morning News in 2014. “I am a
little bit in the blank about what
happened.” He also referred to
his slain daughters as his “best
little friends” and told the news-
paper he had photos of them
displayed in his prison cell. He
declined to speak with The As-
sociated Press as his execution
date neared.
An attorney seeking to re-
Battaglia
The rising number of killings
reverses a 10-year trend. For the
10-year period ending in 2014,
Dallas police reported a 49 per-
cent drop in killings.
Violent crime is also up in
other major U.S. cities, includ-
ing Chicago, Los Angeles and
Houston, where killings rose
from 241 in 2014 to 303 last year.
The four leading city police
unions had balked at Brown’s ef-
forts announced Monday, with
the Black Police Association of
Greater Dallas calling on Brown
to resign.
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 241, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 30, 2016, newspaper, March 30, 2016; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1127313/m1/3/: accessed June 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .