Dallas (WBAP/KLIF News) – Police departments in North Texas are changing the way officers respond to calls as a result of this weekend’s attacks on police in San Antonio, Florida and Missouri.
San Antonio police Detective Ben Marconi was killed while he wrote a traffic ticket near the department’s headquarters. Police say someone pulled up behind Marconi, walked up to his car and shot him in the head.
A total of four police officers were shot Sunday. Two officers were shot in separate cases in Missouri. Another was shot in Florida. The three who were injured should survive.
The Dallas Police Association’s Frederick Frazier went to San Antonio Monday to show support.
“This shooting was unprovoked,” he says. “That’s what we’re seeing more and more of. We’ve got officers out there working every day, myself included, and our heads are on a swivel.”
As a result of the shooting, Dallas police have urged officers to work with partners. Ft. Worth police have issued an order for officers not to respond to calls alone.
Ft. Worth police issued the same order after five officers were killed in Dallas July 7.
“We’ve had more officers killed in Texas than any other state. That’s something we don’t want to lead in,” Frazier says. “Here we are, another officer, one of our own, shot down in front of headquarters by a coward.”
Governor Greg Abbott has proposed a measure he calls the Police Protection Act. The measure would establish an attack on police as a hate crime. Attacks on police would become a 2nd degree felony instead of a 3rd degree felony.
“It should be a hate crime,” Frazier says. “When you’re targeting law enforcement who are the defenders of the gate for everything that is right or wrong in our society, it should be a hate crime.”
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