MURDER RATE HIGH IN DALLAS, OAK CLIFF

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Violent crime in Dallas is up 10 percent in the first six months of 2015, compared with the same period of the previous year.

The number of robberies, aggravated assaults, murders and rapes have increased, but property crimes such as theft and burglary are down, leaving the overall crime rate flat over last year.

Dallas saw 20 murders in June, the highest number since August 2013. And between June 15 and July 7, five people were shot to death in Oak Cliff.

Robbers killed Leonardo Jesus Ortega, an employee of Subway restaurant at Wynnewood Village Shopping Center, on June 14. Ortega, a musician who supported himself by working at the fast-food joint, surprised the robbers when he came out of the restroom, where he had been cleaning. They shot him in the chest, and the mortally wounded Ortega tried to chase them before collapsing. No one has been arrested in that case.

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A 15-year-old boy was found shot to death in an alley near Brooklyn and Ravinia, behind the home of his friend, on June 28. Police told the North Cliff Neighborhood Association this week that the victim, Joe Martinez, had been “into some pretty bad stuff,” which has taken detectives on several leads, although no arrests have been made.

Dallas Police shot and killed a 59-year-old convicted rapist and accused murderer, Joe Cody, near North Bishop and Wickford the afternoon of July 7. Cody, a white supremacist who once got away with murder on a technicality, had violated his parole. He pulled a gun on police who were trying to arrest him near Methodist hospital.

And on the night of July 7, police arrested 60-year-old Leonard Mornes after he informed police that he had shot two women inside his home in the 3800 block of Ledbetter, near the Dallas Executive Airport. Mornes told police the women had been burglarizing his home when he shot them, but police found no evidence of that. The police report states, “it was determined that no burglary took place and that the suspect shot the victims after using drugs with them, falling asleep, and then finding them still in his home after he thought they had left.” Mornes was charged with capital murder.

—Rachel Stone