Losing Dallas Police Chief Eddie García is tough, especially now

Like many other Dallas residents who have cheered the turnaround police Chief Eddie García has masterminded on violent crime, I breathed a sigh of relief in May when he announced he was staying put.
“To live and work in Dallas is to love Dallas,” García said amid reports of other cities courting him to lead their departments. “This is the right place to complete my service.”
Who knew that his service was so close to an end? Especially when interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert and others at Dallas City Hall said the agreement meant García had committed to staying until at least May 2027.
Four months after García’s message on social media that “Home = @DallasPD,” our city has lost a leader who has been a stabilizing force amid dysfunction and turnover at City Hall.
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To lose a strong police chief is tough under the best circumstances. This is hardly that.
Dallas is less than two weeks removed from burying police Officer Darron Burks, who was, in García’s words, “executed” in his marked patrol car Aug. 29 by an assailant who also wounded two officers who came to Burks’ aid.
We’ll no doubt learn in the coming days what factors led to this bombshell news that seemingly no one at City Hall saw coming. Having helped cover Dallas police Chief David Brown’s equally unexpected retirement announcement in September 2016, I couldn’t overlook the similarities. Brown went public with his decision less than two months after a gunman’s ambush on police officers as a downtown protest was ending July 7, 2016. Four Dallas police officers and one DART police officer were killed that night.
How many folded flags can a police chief hand to grieving family members before he has had enough?
García served just 3.5 years, but he is on a very short list of our city’s finest chiefs in recent decades.
Still, we went through the “please, pretty please, stay” routine in May, and it’s time to look forward in terms of what Dallas needs in its next police chief.
Let’s stipulate City Hall is a mess right now. Mention the place and you can count on exaggerated eye rolls from whomever you are talking to — before they even know your specific topic. Dallas has no permanent city manager — or a clear timeline for naming one — which complicates hiring a new leader for its police force.
The city will need a chief who, amid 1500 Marilla’s swirl and commotion, is able to look forward, not backward or sideways. Among García’s greatest strengths has been his ability to focus on the most important issues. He reduced violent crime with unwavering commitment to a grid plan that focused on small, high-offense areas of the city. While violent crime is now dropping in other big U.S. cities, it happened here first.
That’s a big deal and the momentum in that fight can’t be lost.
García’s success on violent crime came from a devotion to data-based strategies. The next chief must sustain, or even better, grow that work. Dallas must find someone who is as good or even better when it comes to the nuts and bolts of information analysis.
The characteristic García brought that likely will be the hardest to replace is his political instincts. What you don’t learn watching TV police dramas is that a successful police chief’s most important talent is how good a politician he is.
García brought bucket-loads of political savvy and could pivot among the roles of confident leader, compassionate healer or cop on the beat — whatever the circumstances required.
The chief whom I watched lift a youngster out of a crowd to wear his police chief’s cap was also the man who sweated in body armor alongside SWAT officers on a drug raid and lowered the temperature at a South Dallas community meeting.
For all his political prowess, García was steadfast in his unwillingness to suffer fools or show patience for inadequate leadership. If poor choices at City Hall led to this untimely departure, that’s a bad deal for Dallas.