Sharon Grigsby: Dallas police Chief Eddie García takes crime personally. His new domestic violence plan shows that

Dallas police Chief Eddie García didn’t need any “October is domestic violence awareness month” reminder on his calendar to prod him into action to try to stop these pernicious crimes. In his previous job as chief in San Jose, Calif., García was often at the side of Bay Area residents Rick and DiAnn Beatty as they advocated for more effective laws after their daughter Alessandra was murdered in 2015 by an intimate partner who had already been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in another state. Each time the Beattys recounted details of the tragedy, García reminded himself: Police may be only one piece of the solution, but we must be committed to making it our responsibility. My department will always show that it really cares. García had been on his new job in Dallas for only a week when a man killed his girlfriend and her mother Feb. 7 in the apartment the three shared, then fatally shot himself during an afternoon standoff with SWAT officers.

The first patrol officers on the scene barely escaped injury when Nathan Rashad James shot at them and shattered patrol car windows. Less than two weeks later, on the morning of Feb. 18, a man murdered his wife in their Old East Dallas home and wounded two officers called to the scene. Sergio Sanchez, who twice had been convicted of sexual assault, killed himself before SWAT officers got inside. García’s reaction to both Dallas incidents was, “This is ridiculous. We’ve got to do more about this.” Even before his official start date, García had worked on the overall violent crime reduction plan that he officially presented in May. He knew domestic violence — crimes that usually occur not on street corners but behind closed doors — would need its own blueprint. Today I’ve got your first look at the details of what García and the Dallas Police Department plan to do to try to reduce these crimes. The plan will be unveiled at noon Monday at City Hall and briefed to the City Council’s Public Safety Committee Tuesday. The strategy includes reorganizing the police department’s family violence unit, resuming visits to the homes of vulnerable survivors and breaking down walls between the homicide and intimate-partner violence detectives.