Dallas Police Face Unfair Discipline, Stress:  Officers in the Dallas Police Department have been taking longer to respond to 911 calls, partly due to officers being "mentally beaten down," according to the head of the Dallas Police Association.  J.D. Miles of CBS DFW reports that the association's president, Ron Pinkston, says that many of the 3,000 officers he represents "are moving slower because of concerns over safety and fears about violating department policies."  Dallas Police Chief David Brown attributes new training requirements to the slower responses to priority one calls, which at eight minutes and 13 seconds is the highest it has been in three years.  Ultimately, there is a lack of motivation within the force due to the fear of doing the right thing coupled with the fear that "nobody's going to support them."

Illegal Immigrant Carjacks Woman Minutes After Release:  An illegal immigrant, who had previously been deported, violently carjacked a woman 30 minutes after his release from jail.  Josh Fatzick of the Daily Caller reports that 24-year-old Guaynar Cabrera-Hernandez was released last Monday from the Montgomery County Detention Center in Washington, D.C., and approached a woman in a parking lot while wielding a knife and a brick, put the knife to her throat, forced her out of the car and hurled the brick at her before speeding off in her vehicle.  He struck again two days later, throwing a bottle at the head of a 68-year-old woman and taking her vehicle, crashing through a security gate with police in pursuit and apprehended when he attempted to flee on foot.  Cabrera-Hernandez was arrested in 2007 for being in the country illegally, and then again in 2011 for which he was subsequently deported.  According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Cabrera-Hernandez's past crimes did not meet the agency's "civil immigration enforcement priorities."  Currently, he is wanted in Maryland for an outstanding armed carjacking warrant and is in custody.

Prop. 47: 'A Well-Intentioned Blunder':  In this column on the San Diego Source, Thomas D. Elias acknowledges that Proposition 47, a ballot measure passed by a 60-40 margin last November that downgrades several felonies to misdemeanors, is a bad policy that endangers Californians.  With crime statistics for the first half of the year pouring out from around the state showing, to name but a few, a 47 percent increase in car burglaries in San Francisco and a 12.7 percent increase in overall crime in Los Angeles, "this measure looks worse and worse."  The consequences of Prop. 47, as Elias points out, are plentiful.  Criminals are adjusting their practices by stealing less than $950 worth of goods to avoid a felony charge. Enrollment in drug treatment programs have dropped now that addicts are relieved of the pressure to kick their habits, knowing they'll never do serious time.  Persons with prior convictions of crimes such as carjacking, armed robbery, child abuse and assault with a deadly weapon are not facing jail time because those crimes qualify for misdemeanor status for new non-violent offenses.  "Now it's time for legislators to fix this flawed measure," says Elias.