If the Dallas City Council is unhappy with the recent crime spike, perhaps voting for the cite-and-release marijuana policy that failed last week could help keep officers on the streets working on eliminating violent crime.

In 2014, 700,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana law violations and 620,000 of those violations were possession. Why are we putting resources to arrest individuals for a crime that is nonviolent?

Dallas City Council had its chance to be proactive toward reducing violent crime by reducing the penalties for a nonviolent one. Now the council members who voted "nay" on the cite-and-release policy would rather blame Dallas Police Chief David Brown for an issue they could have helped solve.

William Dominguez,

Dallas/Lakewood

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