Dallas police chief’s first year brought falling crime — and rising political pressures

Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux and Gov. Greg Abbott sat side by side at a banquet in January, chatting as servers wove through the Westin Galleria ballroom with plates of beef short rib and grilled chicken.

The tuxedoed affair meant to honor the city’s officers came less than two weeks after Abbott, speaking at a campaign event in Fort Worth, blamed the city for AT&T’s planned departure from downtown Dallas. The Republican governor, who is seeking a fourth term, said Dallas was “bearing the brunt” of failures to fully staff law enforcement and to “contain” homelessness downtown.

Comeaux pushed back two days later.

“It’s not true,” he said of the governor’s remarks. “It’s not a true depiction of what’s going on in Dallas.”

The chief pointed to falling crime, bigger recruit classes and a larger police presence downtown. The department issued a public statement soon afterward outlining the ramped-up enforcement efforts.

The episode offered an early glimpse of how Comeaux would have to navigate politics alongside police work, a dynamic he says he did not fully expect.

“My job is to keep everyone safe, and whenever that falls in line on the politics side, it is what it is,” Comeaux said in a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News. “It’s just doing the right thing. And I feel like if we focus on doing the right things, politics doesn’t matter.”

An Abbott spokesman said the governor was unavailable for an interview and had nothing further to add regarding his January comments about downtown Dallas.

Comeaux, a longtime federal drug agent who last oversaw operations spanning more than 100 Texas counties and hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, arrived from Houston a year ago to lead the Dallas police department. His day-one mandates were to hire hundreds of officers, reduce long 911 response times and keep crime — and “perceptions of crime” — down.

One year in, work remains on all three issues. 911 times are getting better, but are still well below the city’s goals. They’re down 600 officers. And year-end crime totals were down, though there are renewed concerns about random gunfire.

But the job has also required him to do something less easily measured: defend Dallas policing in growing debates over public safety and, increasingly, immigration.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist, said big-city police chiefs in Texas often operate less as neutral administrators and more as policy brokers.

“They have to navigate City Hall, the State House, business elites, advocates and the public,” he said. “They’ve got responsibilities across a range of different populations that make it hard for them to be able to satisfy everybody.”

Police chiefs across the country have faced new questions about whether and how closely their officers should work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the Trump administration aggressively ramps up deportations.

The issue came into sharper focus for Comeaux last fall when he was approached about signing an agreement with ICE.Comeaux turned down what he described as a $25 million offer for Dallas police to carry out some immigration enforcement, a move that prompted Mayor Eric Johnson to call for the matter to be aired before the full City Council.

After a heated meeting, council members unanimously agreed with Comeaux’s position.

Cara Mendelsohn, who chairs the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, raised questions about why the proposal had not come to them earlier, saying she learned of it only when Comeaux disclosed he had turned it down during an October meeting of the Community Police Oversight Board. 

Mendelsohn declined an interview request but expressed support for Comeaux.

“I think he has done a good job getting out in the community to meet residents and understand Dallas’ public safety needs,” she said in a recent text message. “He’s given a lot of responsibility to his command staff, which has provided a high level of continuity in the department and trust amongst the officers.”

Mendelsohn did not respond to a question about how Comeaux has handled issues like immigration and public safety in downtown Dallas. 

Council member Jesse Moreno, the Public Safety Committee’s vice chair whose district includes parts of downtown, did not respond to messages and a call seeking an interview.

The immigration issue flared up again this month after Abbott’s office threatened to strip Dallas of more than $32 million in state public safety grants forlimiting officers’ collaboration with immigration agents.

Within days, Comeaux and the department revised the rules to clarify that officers may ask people who are lawfully detained or arrested about their immigration status, cooperate with federal immigration authorities and share immigration-related information — but are not required to do so. The change removed a ban on officers prolonging detention to further investigate someone’s immigration status or to hold them for federal authorities.

Comeaux said the department’s mission would not change.

“We’re not immigration officers,” he said. “However, as I’ve always said from day one, we will cooperate and assist with the federal government.”

Comeaux has said he does not want a debate over immigration to draw additional scrutiny to Dallas.

Rottinghaus said the approach makes sense in the current political climate.

“A win here is the issue being forgotten about in the public setting,” he said. “That means the ability for the department to handle its business without a lot of political oversight.”

Efforts to improve public safety downtown became another lightning rod during Comeaux’s first year, most visibly with Abbott’s broadside about AT&T’s planned departure.

Prior to Comeaux’s hiring, the department began working with Downtown Dallas Inc. and other downtown groups to address crime, homelessness and quality-of-life concerns in the city’s core. The initiative, some of which the chief has worked to carry out, included creating a new downtown police division.

By November, the newly created central business district division had nearly 130 assigned officers, up from about 90 at the start of the year, according to department records reviewed by The News. Officials said it was the highest level in a decade.

“I have seen the officers. I have seen them on the Segways. I have seen them on bikes, and I have seen them on horseback,” said Philip Krause, a downtown resident who serves as president and public safety chair for the Downtown Residents Council and an adviser to DDI. 

“I don’t have any problems feeling comfortable walking anywhere,” he said.

Council member Paul Ridley, whose district includes part of downtown and AT&T’s main campus, pushed back on Abbott’s remarks and the idea that the telecommunications giant is leaving because downtown is unsafe. He pointed to additional officers and enforcement efforts in the area under Comeaux, including traffic patrols.

“Before, we had minimal presence in downtown, and that presence was subject to being called off into other parts of the city whenever there was an incident,” said Ridley, who says he has been happy with Comeaux’s job performance. “Now, they’re focused on the core.”

Other concerns have surfaced elsewhere in the city. 

In January, police reported that violent crime had fallen about 12% overall in 2025 compared to the year before, with homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults all declining. It was the fifth straight year of falling violent crime since the COVID-19 pandemic.

In remarks after the year-end presentation, council member Maxie Johnson said the citywide stats did not reflect what his constituents were experiencing. 

District 4 saw reports of all major crimes fall about 5.6% compared to the previous year, according to police data. But crime stats don’t show the full picture when it comes to whether people feel safe in their neighborhoods.

“We need real results,” he said at the time. “I can’t continue to just give data and say this is happening when our experience is saying something totally different.”

Comeaux responded that he was committed to working with Johnson directly on the issue.

Johnson did not respond to requests for an interview, but said he is planning to hold a news conference next week on the issue of random gunfire — something he and other City Council members have said is a persistent issue.

Now, asked about the concerns, Comeaux points to the year-end stats.

“That’s why you have the numbers in black and white: Crime’s down in Dallas,” the chief said, adding he is also working to address perceptions about crime through the department’s public messaging.

In the same month as the random gunfire discussion, Comeaux sat beside Abbott at the police banquet. It led to a good conversation about public safety in Dallas.

Over dinner, the chief said, the two agreed the city was “heading in the right direction.”