Cop Watch: Dallas Police Chief Resigns With Public Accolades While Dallas Morning News Reporters Tell a Different Story

It’s all over the news today that Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle is quitting his job as Head Cop for our fair city — and lots of folk are speaking out about what a great job he’s done for the community. 

His resignation letter has been published in the media, and it includes a litany of successes that Chief Kunkle points to with pride.   Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm has been quoted as explaining that Chief Kunkle wants to “term limit” himself, under the belief that there is a “shelf life” to the job. 

Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway calls Kunkle’s resignation a “loss to Dallas.”   Media reports in Dallas and Houston point to a record over the past five years where the crime rate was reduced “radically.” 

Which brings us to Tanya Eiserer and Steve Thompson. 

Eiserer and Thompson are two reporters working at the Dallas Morning News, and they have a story to tell.  The Dallas Morning News is reporting that these two truth-seekers have discovered that Chief Kunkle’s crime reporting has been questionable. 

Specifically, stories by Eiserer and Thompson have been published in the Dallas Morning News detailing that (1) the deparment was not counting all car burglary reports in its official tallies (published in September 2009) and (2) the department for many years has been recording complaints of attempted burglary as simple vandalism (published in November 2009).  Those, of course, are two different animals — and importantly, the reporters point out that doing this creative categorization goes against federal guidelines, to boot. 

This morning, the Dallas Morning News is asking if the real reason that Chief Kunkle is resigning without any new position lined up — remember now, he’s purportedly had a long term plan to “term limit” himself according to Suhm — is due in part to the efforts of Eiserer and Thompson.   And, we all remember just last month, when the Chief got a lot of bad press on a national scale when it was revealed that his officers were fining drivers who could not speak English. 

Curious, isn’t it?  Gotta wonder if another shoe is about to fall ….