(I later spoke to Officer Rivera from the Dallas police's Central Business District division, who confirmed that a "shots fired" call and a "major disturbance" call, along with a report of rival gang activity, preceded the use of the mace-loaded guns.)
2:20: Elm Street is a different story. The cruising, which has kept up all night, has become parking--nobody's moving. One guy in the passenger seat of an SUV stands through a sunroof, holds a bottle of liquor in the air and shouts "Woo!" before chugging it. I see no cops on Elm--only a security guard in front of Condom Sense chatting with about six of his friends. Within a minute, his friends start shouting at the cars.
Officers secure an alleged lawbreaker on the street.
"Keep moving!" Dallas police shine flashlights and yell at Deep Ellum crowds after 2 a.m. A few minutes later, the paintball guns arrive.
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2:32: The crowds on Main Street have largely cleared out. I walk back up Elm, where cruisers are still parked, and many people in cars sit on their windowsills while yelling at other cars and passersby. One shouting match between a black man in a car and a white woman on the street nearly gets violent. "I'll stop this car and beat your fat white ass!"
My stomach starts killing me, and I decide that I've seen enough. I run into an old friend and walk her to her car so that she can drive me to mine. As we leave, my friend (who watched much of this shouting with me) explodes. "Deep Ellum used to be about art! Now it's shit."
2:45: I'm dropped off near the well-lit, city-run parking lot, and only two people remain in a 50-yard radius--me and a huge man walking toward me. If he attacks, nobody will hear me scream. And that's the problem. Not the crowds, not the cruisers and certainly not the rap music--most everyone visiting Deep Ellum is looking for a good time, in spite of the racist rhetoric I keep hearing.
But the little things, like carrying beer around the streets or making violent threats at pedestrians, go unchecked. For hours, I walked circles around Deep Ellum and didn't see anyone get attacked. For the most part, I felt safe. But by the end of the night, the little things reminded me that if serious crimes had occurred, nobody would've been able to stop them.
There aren't enough cops to cover Deep Ellum, and Uropa knew that when they hired off-duty officers. Rivera said that the Dallas Police Department brings in forces from other districts to boost the numbers on late nights in Deep Ellum, but he admitted that officers are often taken away from certain posts to help at "the more violent clubs." That may be necessary action, but it's a stopgap measure that leaves the district vulnerable. Until cops start taking Deep Ellum more seriously, musicians--and fans--will not.
