Mike Brooks
Audio By Carbonatix
Across Dallas, 911 reports of random gunfire have fallen over the past three years. The Dallas Police Department, though, knows that doesn’t mean the problem has been solved.
In 2025, Dallasites called in 12,765 reports of random gunfire, down from the more than 14,000 calls made in 2024 and 2023. Members of the Dallas City Council have speculated that the decreased call volume comes as residents have become fatigued by how little there seems to be done about the nuisance crime.
“I heard random gunfire, probably early Sunday morning this weekend,” said Council member Kathy Stewart during a Feb. 9 Public Safety Committee meeting. “I should have gotten up and reported it … but until we have the technology [to address random gunfire], I’m afraid it just feels like it’s not anything and officers can’t get there quickly enough.”
Stewart’s district comes in at No. 10 out of 14 for gunfire calls; in 2025, the district had 736 reports made, DPD data found. The department is currently building a random gunfire dashboard, said Major Yancey Nelson, which will help track which areas are most affected. That data could help the department determine where to launch future programs targeting random gunfire.
City Council districts 4, 5 and 1 had the most reports of random gunfire, with 1,786, 1,342 and 1,301 911 calls, respectively. District 14, which includes parts of downtown, Uptown and East Dallas, had the fewest random gunfire reports at 304.
Random gunfire is the kind of report that has the potential to stretch police forces thin. On average, the department fields 35 calls for the issue each day. DPD sorts 911 calls into a four-tier priority system that outlines intended police response times. Random gunfire is a priority-three call, and that tier level was averaging nearly a two-hour police response time as of January of this year.
On holidays where random gunfire is a popular celebration tactic — this past New Year’s Eve, the department received 759 calls for gunfire on top of 270 reports of fireworks — it can be even more difficult for officers to wack-a-mole out the noise.
The department knows something needs to change. In 2024, the department launched a pilot drone program it believed would help identify where gunfire occurs. The program is currently limited to a one-mile area, and officials told committee members last year that the system still relies on an officer being dispatched to a report.
Officers are now looking into a program that would dispatch an independent, evidence-collecting drone within 30 seconds to two minutes of receiving a gunfire call. The drones would be able to film activity in a reported area and connect with Flock license-plate reading cameras to track a suspect. The idea is still in a “concept phase,” stressed Nelson, but seems to have support around the horseshoe.
Council member Jaime Resendez, whose district ranked second for most random gunfire reports last year, described a crackdown on random gunfire as “one of the most important things we can do to improve the quality of life for residents in the city of Dallas.”
DPD is also soon launching a billboard campaign to educate on the penalties associated with random gunfire, and the need for residents to continue calling in the reports. Recklessly discharging a firearm in a municipality is a Class A misdemeanor that can earn up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.
“It is terrorizing people and it’s making them feel unnecessarily unsafe,” said council member Cara Mendelsohn. “And that’s what we all need to be saying to everyone in our communities. This is not allowed, and it won’t be tolerated.”
