The city’s first homicide in 2019 happened a few hours into the New Year. Since then, fatal violence on Dallas’ streets has unfolded with grim regularity, drawing attention only when the crimes have been too shocking to ignore.

The May killing of Muhlaysia Booker, a black transgender woman, at White Rock Lake prompted a national outcry. The fatal shooting of 9-year-old Brandoniya Bennett in August in her family’s apartment at the Roseland Townhomes led Mayor Eric Johnson to form a task force to address crime.

And now the number of homicides, too, has become impossible to ignore.

On Friday, police said the homicide total for the year had reached 210, a number not seen in more than a decade, and one that is both staggering and needing context. Police consider 200 of the deaths murders and 10 of them justifiable homicides, on which grand juries are asked to weigh in.

This far into 2018, Dallas had recorded 169 homicides, including those considered justifiable homicides, according to federally reported data published Thursday by Dallas police.

Among the 200, 190 are murders in which the incident and death occurred in 2019. The remaining 10 deaths occurred in 2019, though the violence that led to them occurred in a previous year.

To be sure, Dallas’ homicide count is nowhere near the high of over 500 violent deaths seen in 1991, when the city’s population was much smaller. Compared with the numbers in decades past, overall crime is down across the city, state and county. Of note: The way Dallas publicly reports violent crime statistics changed in 2018, so not all numbers are directly comparable.

What is clear is that the last time Dallas recorded 200 murders was in 2007.

The rise in violent deaths has neighborhood leaders, law enforcement officials and elected officials searching for answers.

Earlier this month, Johnson issued a letter saying the crime increase was “unacceptable” and demanding that City Manager T. C. Broadnax ask the Police Department to present a plan to address it.

He wrote: “As we approach 2020, it is my expectation that our city staff and our police department will work more aggressively and transparently toward making Dallas safer.”

Compared with other Texas cities, Dallas’ uptick stands out. According to unofficial numbers as of Dec. 13, Houston had had 263 homicides this year, compared with 262 at the same date a year ago. San Antonio, with a bigger population than Dallas, has had 99 murders so far this year, down from 107 in 2018.

Other things also stand out in Dallas’ numbers: Homicides involving a gun have increased 32% from a year ago, to 167. And domestic violence killings are up 55%.

While ZIP codes in southern Dallas have seen the majority of the homicides, no area of the city has been immune.

Here are some of the ways the violence has taken a toll.

A birthday cake and a headstone

Jason Hill was the first homicide victim in Dallas this year. He was shot outside an adult nightclub shortly before 3 a.m. Jan. 1. He would have been 35 on Jan. 6.

Early next year, his twins, Semiya and Jayzon Hill, will celebrate their eighth birthday at a cemetery.

Their mother, Jessica Hill, will take them and a small cake and sit at the grave of their father, with whom the twins share a birthdate. It will be the second birthday they celebrate without their father.

Hill was shot allegedly by Eric Hansen and Daterrious Haggard, security guards at the strip joint XTC Cabaret. Hansen and Haggard said they shot at Hill to keep him from leaving in a truck after a fight. No trial date has been set for either man.

Since Jason’s death, Jessica has tried to provide a normal life and support for the four children she had with him. And she’s tried to comfort Jason’s oldest daughter from a previous marriage, she said.

“He liked to dance with his girls,” Jessica said this week. “He really couldn’t dance. But he tried.”

As the anniversary of Jason’s death approaches, she knows it will be difficult.

“I don’t know how the kids are going to be,” Jessica said. “I’m trying to be there for them. It’s hard.”

‘Perspective of time’

Dallas County Medical Examiner Jeffrey Barnard has what he likes to call “the perspective of time.”

He took over the medical examiner’s office in 1991, the same year Dallas recorded more than 500 homicides.

“It was a ton of cases every day,” he said.

So, while the increase this year has kept his office busier than normal, it’s nothing his team can’t absorb, he said. “It’s just not as bad.”

In the early 1990s, the examiner’s office had only four or five employees. The team is now three times as large, with 14.

Seeking action

Tabitha Wheeler-Reagan remembers a time when her neighborhood and elected officials came together to stop an earlier string of violence.

It was 2017 and her community seemed like a “war zone.” So Wheeler-Reagan, a lifelong South Dallas resident and business owner, and other community activists worked with elected officials and law enforcement to turn things around. She recalls seeing improvements within three months.

Wheeler-Reagan thought her community was going to step up again earlier this year when homicides began ticking up again.

“I thought we had some good ideas,” she said.

Then Gov. Greg Abbott deployed Department of Public Safety officers in South Dallas for two months to help police. While the troopers were welcomed by some, Wheeler-Reagan said she believes the troopers’ presence did more harm than good and set back any progress in building the trust among residents, local police and elected officials that is needed to curb crime.

“The troopers drove us crazy,” she said.

Today, Wheeler-Reagan is skeptical that the mayor and Police Chief U. Renee Hall can accomplish any meaningful reforms, in large part because, she says, they have shut community leaders out of the discussion.

“He’s not being effective,” she said of Johnson. “I don’t care how many speeches he gives. He’s not using the community effectively.”

For Wheeler-Reagan, the only way forward is for the whole city to work together.

“This is a widespread thing,” she said. “This is going on all over Dallas. You can have a murder in Far North Dallas in the morning and Oak Cliff in the evening. This is a city thing."

-- Staff writers Cassandra Jaramillo and Hayat Norimine contributed to this report.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that San Antonio is smaller than Dallas.