Dallas’ first Black female police chief steps down after protest backlash
Another Black police chief in a major city, this time in Texas, steps down
This week, U. Reneé Hall – the first Black woman to lead the Dallas police force – submitted her resignation, becoming the latest in a string of commanding officers across the nation who’ve stepped down from their posts after months of protests against police brutality.
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According to The Associated Press, Tuesday, Hall, 49, turned in her resignation letter, which didn’t give a reason for stepping down but did explain that she planned to stay on through the end of the year.
In recent months she, like many others, has faced criticism for how her department has dealt with protests sparked by the case of George Floyd, a Black man who died while in police custody in May after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Hall reportedly wrote in her resignation letter that while Dallas police have dealt with “an unthinkable series of events” in the time since she took office in 2017, she remains proud of how the 3,000-officer department both “coped” and “implemented critical reforms.”
Although city spokeswoman Catherine Cuellar originally said City Manager T.C. Broadnax accepted Halls’s resignation effective Nov. 10, she later clarified that the chief had agreed to Broadnax’s request to have the department benefit from her leadership through the end of the year.
“When you review Chief Hall’s Dallas record, there aren’t enough superlatives to describe the impact she’s had here,” Broadnax said in a statement.
In the wake of Floyd’s death, police chiefs across the nation have stepped down for various reasons in Seattle, Atlanta, Portland, Oregon, and Richmond, Virginia.
Read More: Rochester police chief and ‘entire command staff’ retire after facing backlash for Prude death
Tuesday – the same day as Hall’s resignation – top police leaders in Rochester, New York, announced their retirements amidst nightly protests ignited by the suffocation death of Daniel Prude while in police custody.
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