Gov. Newsom's office says Dallas' murder rate nearly twice Los Angeles amid Texas-California feud
An unexpected feud has erupted between the California governor's press office and Dallas authorities.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office has recently taken aim at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on social media, a feud that escalated after Texas approved a plan to redraw its congressional maps to favor Republicans, prompting California to do the same to counter those additional GOP seats.
One of those claims made by Newsom's office is that the murder rate in Dallas is higher than in Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the U.S.
In a flurry of tweets over the weekend, Gov. Newsom's press office took shots at red states on social media, claiming that Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana all had higher murder rates than the City of Los Angeles.
Sunday night, they posted on X that Dallas' murder rate is nearly twice that of LA.
"It's interesting to me to watch the way that crime statistics get used," said Timothy Bray, a University of Texas at Dallas criminologist.
The information cited by Newsom's press office comes from 2024 police reports data from both cities.
Which city is more dangerous to live in? Dallas or Los Angeles?
Bray said he has looked at the same stats from 2024, and while the information cited by Newsom's office may be a true, he thinks it's not an accurate assessment of which city is more dangerous to live in. He said the same data shows Los Angeles has a higher robbery rate, a higher criminal sexual assault rate, and a higher aggravated assault rate.
"When people start to think about quality of life, it's not just murders, it's: 'Can I go outside and feel safe?'" Bray added.
According to the 2024 data from police reports, the homicide rate is 14 per 100,000 in Dallas city vs 7.1 per 100,000 in the City of Los Angeles.
Monday, Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux responded on X with what he called a "fact check."
"Fact check: Dallas has experienced 49 fewer murders in 2025 compared to this point in 2024 - putting us at 6.29 murders per 100,000 residents. Lower than LA's 6.95!"
With 3.8 million residents, Los Angeles is nearly 3 times bigger than Dallas.
Promoting LA as a safer city than Dallas is a hard sell based on one piece of data, according to those who study crime numbers.
"It's easy to pick one statistic and compare it, but no one statistic tells the truth of the complexity of all quality of life neighborhoods," Bray said.