Eddie Garcia, the new Dallas Police Chief halted a resolution that would stop arrests for small amounts of marijuana at his first Dallas City Council Public Safety Committee meeting this week.
The arrests apply to less than two ounces of marijuana and the City Council resolution against them has been under review for months, beginning when Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot began refusing to prosecute those cases.
At the meeting, Garcia had a two-ounce sample of marijuana divided into packets for individual sale by drug dealers. He said police should have the discretion to make arrests of dealers in such situations.
“The real victims were those businesses in that area that have to struggle with drug dealers posting up in front of their business and having a 24-hour weed sale in front of their businesses. That is something that certainly affects our city,” Garcia said.
The Police Chief has requested a month to devise an alternative enforcement plan that would discourage arrests of people merely in possession of marijuana for personal use.
According to Dallas Police Monitor Tonya McClary, who runs the Officer of Community Police Oversight, many of these small misdemeanor cases target African Americans unfairly.
“It’s primarily the African American community that really has been differently affected by all of these offenses,” McClary said.
McClary proposes that arrests for less than two ounces of marijuana to end and noise violations, sleeping in public and Jaywalking laws repealed by the city.
“What we’re saying is we’d like City Council to look at these issues and see if this is really making a difference in terms of crime in the city of Dallas. And if it’s not, then let’s just repeal these so we can work on other issues such as social justice and other things that are leading people to commit some of these offenses,” McClary said.
“We have to give people hope because people that are hopeless will try to do things that are not congruent with what we are trying to accomplish,” said Chief Garcia.
Garcia said he intends to have a new violent crime plan by April.
