Dallas police officers, firefighters rail against mayor's handling of pension crisis

DALLAS — After a gunman fatally shot five police officers amid a peaceful protest here last summer, city officials appeared at memorial services and on international television to speak about solidarity and support for first responders.

Less than nine months later, hundreds of Dallas police officers stood at City Hall on Wednesday morning and said Mayor Mike Rawlings and some of his fellow City Council members have turned their backs on the people who risk their lives to protect residents and their property.

“We want to make sure the citizens, the people in the United States, know that Dallas is not being run the way they thought it was after July 7,” said Dale Erves, a 33-year veteran of the police department who retired in 2015.

Scores of Dallas Police Association members and their supporters, clad in white “Support Dallas Police and Fire” T-shirts, marched to City Hall to protest Rawlings’ calls for residents to oppose a legislative fix to the rapidly failing first responder pension fund.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/04/26/dallas-mayor-takes-heat-his-approach-pension-crisis/