DALLAS — The life of the party, a sleeping child, a single mother and a father of five. All killed. All gun violence. All in a single week.
From March 9 through Wednesday, at least 13 people were fatally shot in Dallas — one of the highest death tolls from a single week in the past three years. They ranged in age from 11 to 61 and were killed in neighborhoods across the city. They were found in cars, in homes and on streets. Some were targeted, others were caught in the crossfire.
Scores more were affected by the gunfire — whether they witnessed it, were wounded or lost a loved one.
The trail of grief left across Dallas over the course of seven days happened as police and city officials grapple with an uptick in homicides and violent crime. While they maintain faith their efforts can reverse the trend, those affected by the heartache and anguish say the damage has already been done.
On Wednesday, a shooting at a Deep Ellum bar left two people dead and a third wounded. Police say a gunman wearing a ski mask opened fire on the patio, fatally striking 37-year-old Rickey Gossett and 30-year-old Danielle Jones.
“Never in a million years did I think I would have to bury my sister,” said Ciara Lasley, Jones’ older sister. “When I got that call in the middle of the night, I remember I screamed to the point of losing my voice. Not my sister. Not my sister.”
Tributes posted online called Jones “the definition of a true friend,” and said “If she loved you, she was riding til’ the wheels fell off.” Another lamented how she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
According to police, Gossett was targeted by the gunman, while Jones was a bystander inside the bar.
Though losing her little sister has been unfathomable, Lasley said the hardest moment in the days since her death was having to tell Jones’ 8-year-old son, Kidd. Jones, who is from Houston, was in Dallas for a spring break trip with Kidd, who wanted to go to Six Flags.
“When that boy came into this world, her dedication was to him,” Lasley said.
As of Thursday evening, an arrest has not been made.
“We as a family deserve justice,” Lasley said. “If people have any compassion for a mother that was doing her best to raise her son to be an upstanding man, they will be here, and if they know something, they will speak up.”
Through Wednesday, Dallas police recorded a 31.8% uptick in murders in 2023, with 58 victims compared with 44 during the same period last year. Police and city officials acknowledged the pervasive bloodshed, but remain hopeful they can guide Dallas back in the right direction.
“These have certainly been challenging times for us,” police Chief Eddie García said. “Although violent incidents are down, they have resulted in more victims through the first 2½ months of the year. These men and women are working extremely hard, I’m proud of their efforts, and we will never give up.”
Dallas police statistics through Wednesday show the city has had 2,153 violent crimes this year — up about 4.1% from the same period in 2022. The uptick in violence has been driven, largely, by an increase in aggravated assaults.
Police reported 1,551 aggravated assaults through Wednesday, up 8.7% from the same point in 2022. The department tallied 420 robberies, down from 469 in 2022.
García said the first weeks of 2023 brought the lowest number of violent incidents in five years, but several incidents involved numerous victims.
Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters
Families and friends shed light on some of the lives cut short, while court records provided new details about exactly what happened.
On March 9, police say 61-year-old Donald Claude Jackson was shot in his car in southeast Oak Cliff while trying to sell two laptops and a cellphone. His 7-year-old son was in the backseat, and called 911 once he realized his dad was hurt.
Jackson was pronounced dead at a hospital.
On March 11, a man fired into his ex-girlfriend’s North Dallas home when, an affidavit says, she refused to come outside to talk to him. He struck Jeremiah Green, her sleeping 11-year-old son, in the head, killing him.
The boy’s mother, 31-year-old Jocelyn Green, was taken to a hospital for a gunshot wound to the arm. According to a GoFundMe to cover his funeral expenses, Jeremiah was her only child.
“It is a tragedy,” the site says. “We live in an unpredictable world and there are awful situations we cannot control.”
On March 12, four people were fatally shot at a northwest Dallas apartment complex: Juan Diego Cruz, 18, Guadalupe Cruz, 25, Jasmine Borjas Santos, 20, and Fatima Guadalupe Alvarado Fuentes, 21. Friends and relatives said Juan Diego Cruz and Guadalupe Cruz were brothers, and Borjas Santos was Guadalupe Cruz’s wife.
Court records say family members told police Artemio Maldonado, 18, and Azucena Sanchez, 20, might have killed the group. Relatives said Sanchez was Juan Diego Cruz’s ex-girlfriend and that the two had been involved in a custody dispute over their son. Sanchez and Maldonado made multiple threats against Juan Diego Cruz as a result of the dispute, according to records.
It was believed to be Dallas’ first quadruple homicide in years. It also was the city’s third mass shooting — typically defined as four or more people killed or wounded in one location — in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Two days after the slaying, nearly 100 people gathered at the apartment complex to honor three of the four victims. Among them was Edgardo Yanez, who said Guadalupe Cruz was a close friend and a “very genuine person.”
“He was a real great guy,” Yanez said. “Real outgoing, life-of-the-party type of deal.”
On March 13, Juan Jose Prado was found shot dead in his pickup after he tried to take a gun from the suspected shooter, according to an affidavit. During a struggle, the gun went off, and Prado was struck in the face. He was 22.
Over the course of the week, 13 people were killed in nine shootings. Police announced arrests in seven of the slayings — four of the shootings — while others remain open.
‘We still have work to do’
Despite the challenges, top police brass have committed to staying the course with the chief’s violent-crime plan, which was implemented in May 2021 and is based on the belief that a few pockets of the city are responsible for a disproportionate amount of violence.
Police heightened visibility in about 50 hot spots — 330-foot-by-330-foot grids in the city where violence is highest — and are now in their eighth rendition of the grids. They’ve also zeroed in on three locations where officers and city agencies have tried to improve quality-of-life issues: 3550 E. Overton Road in east Oak Cliff, 11700 Ferguson Road in Far East Dallas and 3535 Webb Chapel Extension in northwest Dallas.
The department has been planning out its longest-term strategy, focused deterrence — which aims to change the behavior of high-risk offenders through arrests, community involvement and social services. In recent weeks, officers met with researchers, Dallas County probation officials and the state parole board to form partnerships, police said.
During the first months of 2022, the city’s homicide and overall violent crime counts also climbed higher than the previous year — but starting in the summer months, those rates began to decline. By the end of 2022, violence had dropped about 5.5%.
Police officials told the City Council’s public safety committee this month that the department analyzes the root cause and underlying conditions of any major incident. García referenced last year’s trends as an example of how crime can fluctuate significantly over the course of a year.
“What’s important to me, what’s important to the men and women of this police department [when] we have issues and we have challenges, is what are we doing to address them?” the chief told city officials.
“This is a complete body of work, it’s not a year thing for us — it’s a journey.”
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said in a written statement that public safety remains a top priority, and “we can never rest on our laurels” so long as residents are affected by violence.
“These tragic incidents show why it is so important for us to continue to relentlessly focus on public safety and violent crime reduction,” Johnson said. “While Dallas has been the only major American city to record two-consecutive years of violent crime reduction in every major category, we understand that we still have work to do.”
But Lasley said nothing can replace her younger sister, Jones, “a one-in-a-million gem.”
“This is not just some young lady who was out — this was a mother, a sister, who was loved tremendously,” she said. “We want the senseless killings to end.”
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