Deep Ellum community meets to discuss change

It's been about a week since those deadly shootings in Deep Ellum, and community members are talking about ways to make the neighborhood more safe. Good evening, I'm Steve Eager. Four people were killed, 15 injured and wounded, all on Halloween night. Fox4's Trackdown helped police arrest convicted felon David Yancey in one of those cases, and police are hoping to make more arrests. Fox4's Alex Boye is live in that popular entertainment district tonight where the Deep Ellum Foundation got some public input this afternoon. Alex. Yeah, that's right, Steve. You know, this, of course, being the first weekend since that deadly shooting here in the Deep Ellum Entertainment District of Dallas. The executive director of the foundation tells me that there will be enhanced security measures in place to ensure that people are safe, although those details remain under wraps. Now, this afternoon, the foundation held their second listening session of the week. The last one was held in the evening. This one held at 2 p.m. In an effort to give people more opportunity There are dozens of folks gathered at the Deep Ellum Community Center to make their voices heard. Those people include residents, business owners, and patrons of the popular entertainment district. The Dallas Police Chief, City Manager, and Councilman Jesse Moreno were among community leaders on hand to help answer questions from the crowd. I felt hopeful. I said that at the end of our session. It is a moment that that is a challenging thing to feel, but it is a special thing when you have a room full of people you've known for a ton of years, including that have worked really hard on safety in this neighborhood, and then a ton of people you've never met before that are also committed, that took time off their job, that came to be part of this conversation. So business owners are especially concerned about the violent crime happening in Deep Ellum. They're worried customers will stay away. I talked to one guy who's looking for long term solutions. I'm nervous, of course, you want to see what's going to happen. And I think this first weekend will probably be a lot of boots on the ground. Thanks for coming around. So I'm really probably more nervous after what happens after that initial push. Like once That sort of dies down, like what remains and is that viable and that's really what my main concern lies about. Erbel Wyatt tells me that the parking lot in front of his store has an attendant who monitors it at night and he says that prevents folks from loitering in the parking lot and he'd like to see other parking lot owners do the same thing. Now this was the second planned listening session that was held today. I'm told that more could happen in the future if they feel the community is I can tell you that there are some security enhancements already being put into place by state and local law enforcement. They announced earlier this week Operation Deep Cover and that specifically is designed to add more officers to the area and also aggressively prosecute those who break the law. Back to you. We'll be right back.