DPA President Sean Pease said Abbott’s threat to pull funding “creates unnecessary strain on a department already facing significant staffing challenges.”
DALLAS — Two days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to withhold public safety funding from the city of Dallas, the Dallas Police Association has issued a statement calling the threat “deeply concerning.”
In the statement, DPA President Sean Pease said the threat to withhold tens of millions of dollars in state funding isn’t just concerning for Dallas police officers, but for the safety of Dallas residents as well.
“Let me be clear: the men and women of the Dallas Police Department have always supported our federal partners, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, every time they have called upon us,” Pease wrote. “However, our primary responsibility is, and must remain, responding to the residents of Dallas who call 911 for help.”
Currently, Pease wrote, the Dallas Police Department is about 700 officers short, even as officers work to improve emergency response times. And any priority shift that pulls officers away from those emergency calls, he said, puts the community at risk. Threatening critical funding, Pease says, creates unneeded strain on DPD, which is already facing serious staffing shortages.
“The current general orders of the Dallas Police Department are designed to ensure officers can focus on local public safety — responding to violent crime, protecting victims, and maintaining trust with the community,” Pease wrote. “These policies do not prevent cooperation with federal authorities; they ensure that Dallas officers are not diverted from their core mission during routine policing.”
Pease said DPD remains committed to working with all of its partners, including federal, state and local, but that the department’s most important duty is helping the people of Dallas.
“Public safety should never become a political bargaining chip,” he wrote. “Decisions that impact the safety of our officers, and our community must be made with a clear understanding of the realities on the ground.”
The city received a letter from the Governor’s Public Safety Office Executive Director on Andrew Friedrich, accusing DPD of adopting general orders contradicting the certification Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert made to receive approximately $32.1 million in state public safety grants in 2025.
The letter has asked the city to confirm by April 23 that it will not enforce and will act to repeal the general orders to comply with Tolbert’s certification or face grant funding cuts.
If the grants are cut, the letter said Dallas will have to repay the money — and keeping the existing general orders could imperil public safety funding for the upcoming FIFA World Cup, Friedrich wrote.
