Police get a Huge Grant
DPD $15 Million Gift Will Fund Much-needed Tools to Make City Safer

The Dallas Morning News
August 5, 2005


The resource-strapped Dallas police will benefit from a gift of $15 million over three years in what may be the largest ever private grant to a police department.
Police officials hope the donation by the W.W. Caruth Jr. Foundation Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas may mark a critical turning point for Dallas, which for the last seven years has had the highest crime rate among cities with more than 1 million residents.

It also may mark a turning point for a department long accustomed to scarcity.
“In the history of the department, there's never been a brighter day than what we're experiencing today,” said Police Chief David Kunkle, who took over the department's top post in June of last year.

“If Dallas police officers have the equipment, tools and resources, then we will make a difference in the community.”

The Police Department will receive $5 million upfront to fill a variety of equipment needs, including squad car cages and cameras in cars.

A consultant will be hired to help the department determine how to best spend the remaining $10 million.

“We're making an unprecedented investment in the future of our city,” said Charles Wyly, chairman of the Communities Foundation's board. “Without security of person and property, very little else matters.”

The grant is one of the largest awarded in the foundation's 52-year history.

The urgency of the department's needs - ranging from broken squad cars and aging helicopters to a lack of squad car cages and computers - emerged in internal operational reviews, an outside efficiency study and news accounts over the last 18 months.

Those reports blamed years of tight budgets, poor leadership and bad hiring practices for a variety of ills, including high crime, a frustrated community and, within the police department, low morale, poor equipment and a shortage of officers.

As recently as May, the city had estimated it would spend $4 million on police equipment in the 2005-06 budget.

The multimillion-dollar donation clearly reflects faith in Chief Kunkle's stewardship, Mayor Laura Miller said. “We've got a police chief who I know will use this wisely,” Ms. Miller said, pledging that the City Council will continue to beef up the department's staffing and resources.

City Manager Mary Suhm said the department will begin purchasing badly needed equipment immediately. “We will justify your trust,” she said.

Thursday's announcement at the foundation's headquarters featured all the force's pomp and circumstance, with the entire command staff attending in full dress uniform. Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill sat in the front row in a ceremony attended by more than 100 prominent local residents.

Police played Scottish bagpipes. The department's honor guard led the pledge of allegiance. Members of the police choir sang patriotic standards. Four sons of Mr. Caruth, a Dallas developer and philanthropist who died in 1990, were on hand for the ceremony.

“It's nice to be able to do something good for the good guys,” said Bill Caruth, one of the philanthropist's sons. He said his father had a “soft spot” for the men and women in blue. Police “put their lives on the line every time they go to work, and that's what makes them special to me,” Bill Caruth said.

An idea takes root
The seeds of the grant were sown in La Jolla, Calif., where Ms. Miller vacations each year.

In July 2004, Jack Hammack, a former oil executive and Highland Park mayor, was also vacationing there when he knocked on the mayor's condo door and told her he wanted to do something to help the struggling Police Department.

He said he was reminded of the need to beef up police resources when his longtime housekeeper's home was burglarized.

“You should call Charles Terrell,” Ms. Miller recalled telling him.

Her suggestion prompted Mr. Hammack and Mr. Terrell, a former City Council member and longtime public safety advocate, to team up to work on behalf of the Police Department. In the case of Mr. Hammack's housekeeper, thieves had struck the home while she was at work, he said. “They stole treasures that she had worked years to accumulate,” Mr. Hammack said. “The police asked her two questions: Is the robber there, and is anybody injured.” When she answered no to
both questions, police told her that they would come by later to get details.

Mr. Hammack didn't blame the police for their response because “they just don't have enough to go around,” he said. “I decided I was going to make it safer for people, especially in low-income areas.”

He and Mr. Terrell founded the organization Safer Dallas, Better Dallas, asked the department for an equipment wish list and began soliciting donors.

“What we've tried to do is sell the message that Dallas needs to emphasize public safety, that we needed to do something dramatic,” Mr. Terrell said.

In May, Ruth Altshuler heard Mr. Hammack and Mr. Terrell's presentation during a meeting at the Meadows Foundation.

“The light bulb went on when they started talking about this. I knew this was so down Will Caruth's alley,” said Ms. Altshuler, a trustee of the Communities Foundation, referring to the late philanthropist.

Setting a precedent?
Experts said the grant's size appears to be historic.

Foundations routinely award grants for a variety of governmental projects, but such a large gift specifically to a police department is unique, said Jeff Martin, spokesman for the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C.

“This is obviously a very generous gift to the Police Department,” he said.
The Foundation Center in New York City, which tracks gifts by philanthropic groups nationwide, recorded dozens of gifts in recent years directly to U.S. police and sheriff's departments, but the highest amount was $121,000.

“What a grant like that says to me is that the foundation sees the importance of what the Police Department is trying to do,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based law enforcement think tank.

The Caruth donation may well mark the beginning of a new phase of giving. A meeting with other foundations has been scheduled for Aug. 24 at the Jack Evans Police Headquarters, officials say.