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Jan 7, 2010 10:35 pm US/Central
Car Break-Ins Up, Convictions Down In Dallas
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
They leave behind damaged property and dozens of victims but often walk free only a day after being arrested.
Car break-ins are one of the few crimes in Dallas that saw an increase in 2009 and those responsible are finding a revolving door at the county jail.
Kara Johnson walked out of her downtown Dallas apartment yesterday to find her car window broken and laptop computer missing from the backseat. "It's devastating, I work from home and all of my work and everything all of my work is on my laptop."
It will take days to repair her car and longer to replace lost work files. But it took less than a day for Ricardo Zuniga to get out of jail. Police say he's committed at least five smash and grab burglaries in the same downtown apartment building. Yet he was released only hours after his arrest last month by posting a $500 bond.
"They need to stay in jail there's no way that somebody's going to improve over a night they're going to keep doing exactly what they were doing to get in jail," says Johnson.
Christian De La Funte paid only a $1000 to walk out of jail in November, a day after he was arrested for breaking into cars.
Police say he's committed at least 60 and was arrested again last month but out of jail the same day after posting a $1000 bond.
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins agrees with crime victims and police who say the system is broken.
Watkins says when County Commissioners forced him to cut his budget by ten percent, it forced him to remove prosecutors from the county jail. Those prosecutors would alert judges about an arrestee's background before setting a bond.
"It's unfortunate that we had to get rid of that program and we are actively at this point to bring it back," says Watkins, "This is just an example of being irresponsible and short sighted and not using the resources as they should be used."
Dallas County Judge Jim Foster responded to Watkins' charges by telling CBS 11 that the budget cuts were unavoidable.
He also says it's not fair to blame county commissioners because the district attorney can move his employees where he wants.
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