Dallas police Thursday were conducting “enforcement efforts” at homeless encampments across the city, department officials told The Dallas Morning News.
Elizabeth Jordan, founder of The Human Impact, a nonprofit that serves people experiencing homelessness, said she arrived at her downtown location about 8:30 a.m. to find more than a dozen Dallas police cruisers lining a nearby street.
Her rented space is located near the 1700 block of S. Good Latimer Expressway. Outside, a pop-up tent that read “Community Operations Division” was set up inside a yellow-taped perimeter. Beneath it, officers spoke in clusters while bystanders watched from behind the tape.
Jordan said police rounded people up at tents and under overpasses. She saw at least 50 people with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, and said some were taken from the location in white vans.
Crime in The News
“To line people up in a row, it’s such a humiliating, dehumanizing way to treat other people,” Jordan said. “At least two people told me this is the current policy going forward.”
In an email sent to The News, Allison Hudson, a police spokeswoman, said they were “not aware of any DPD activity at The Human Impact” and “there is no DPD-led operation taking place at that location.”
“DPD’s Homeless Outreach Team is out in several areas of Dallas conducting routine outreach and enforcement efforts,” the email said. “This work is centered on connecting people experiencing homelessness with services, while also addressing public safety and quality-of-life concerns.”
Past the caution tape, a man perched on two steps sipped coffee and puffed a cigarette. He said he lacked housing and had come to Human Impact to pray with friends that morning, only to find the police outside.
“I came here to praise God this morning and saw this,” he said, leaning back. He gestured toward a small group detained by officers. “That could’ve been any of us.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.