In 2001, under pressure from police and politicians, then-Dallas County District Attorney Bill Hill launched a highly publicized crackdown on illegal eight-liner parlors that had sprung up like ragweed in dingy storefronts in Dallas and suburbs. Toby Shook, a defense attorney and former prosecutor, remembers Hill assembling reporters at a…
Mouthy women populate my lineage. My mother’s mother, college-educated before many women were in Kansas, widowed with two young daughters, so a single parent when few middle class mothers were, was what I believed would have been called at the time “outspoken.” She was a woman who had made her…
Let’s give credit where credit is due. The Dallas Morning News has done a perfectly OK job of covering Sandra Bland’s questionable arrest and alleged suicide in a jail cell outside Houston. Even chronically wrong opinionaters (i.e. Tod Robberson) have managed to swallow their worst hot-take reflexes and compose thoughtful…
Maypearl Chief of Police Kevin Coffey was arrested and charged with four felonies, including sexual assault of a child, after turning himself in Wednesday afternoon. Coffey, 49, contacted a then 14-year-old girl on Facebook two years ago, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. He sent her messages almost every day,…
Dallas is currently in the midst of an ATM theft epidemic. Twenty-four cash machines have been stolen since January 1. Thirty-one more unsuccessful attempts at stealing ATMs have been made in the same period. Dallas police are pretty upset about the whole thing, and generally push out surveillance videos in…
When a crime is seen from a distance, everybody’s macho about it and wants to lock up the bad guys for life. Sometimes things look different to the people who are in the moment. My wife and I were shocked to see video on Facebook of Alice Zaccarello getting mugged…
The title of Dutch documentary filmmaker Kasper Verkaik’s 60-minute film, Plaza Man is a reference to Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist Robert Groden, the guy who sells books and DVDs every fine weekend at Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas. But the Kennedy assassination, the conspiracy theories, even Groden’s long-running battle with…
Dozens of people have been arrested by the FBI on drug-related charges after a North Texas-based investigation featuring the Dallas Police Department and an alphabet soup of federal agencies. Some of the drug conspiracy, feds say, ran through DFW Airport. Four of the people arrested — Molitoni Katoa, Janelle Isaacs,…
Coppell police arrested a suspect Monday afternoon following the Sunday evening shooting of former Coppell High School running back Charles West. West graduated this spring and signed a football letter of intent with BYU. The alleged shooter was identified in a photo lineup by West, according to police. The suspect’s…
Johnathan Turner, a former Madison High School basketball player, pleaded guilty to beating his housemate Troy Causey to death Monday. He’s been given seven years probation for killing Causey, who played hoops for Wilmer-Hutchins. If he completes his probation successfully, the case against him will be dismissed. Causey died after…
Former Cowboys safety CJ Spillman turned himself in Wednesday morning on a sexual assault charge stemming from an alleged September 2014 attack at the Gaylord Texan resort in Grapevine. The arrest follows a Tarrant County grand jury’s decision to issue an indictment of Spillman on Monday. The alleged assault was…
It’s probably fair to call Brett Sanders, like Kory Watkins, a provocateur — the nice word for troll — scheming to get police to act in a way that can go viral on YouTube. But whereas Watkins rushes to traffic stops and the like to aggressively videotape officers in action,…
As bad things so often do, a West Oak Cliff woman’s run-in with a not-really-a-dentist dentist started with a medical consultation on Facebook. The woman was in pain and needed some dental work done. Tiffany Gonzalez was happy to help, Dallas police say. Gonzalez set the woman, identified by The…
Dallas police and the county prosecutors are testing the city’s 4,140 backlogged rape kits. That’s good. What’s less good is the strain the inevitable DNA matches the tests find will place on District Attorney Susan Hawk’s office. To prepare, Hawk announced Wednesday she’s expanding her office’s sexual assault unit, adding…
Governor Greg Abbott’, three weeks after effectively telling drug overdosers to drop dead by klling a bill to protect Good Samaritan 911 callers from prosecution for small-time drug possession, took another intexplicably regressive potshot at the Legislature’s attempts to make Texas’ criminal justice system just a bit more humane. Among the measures…
Darryl Hamilton, the man who played center field for one of the most important teams in Texas Rangers history, was shot to death near Houston sometime Sunday afternoon. According to the Pearland Police Department, Hamilton and Monica Jordan were found dead after officers responded to a 911 call at 4:45 p.m…
Sebastian Blain, the French defense contractor who was charged with assaulting two bicyclists on Turtle Creek Boulevard late last year, was found not guilty by a jury this month, court records show. At his trial, Blain testified that he was acting in self-defense, according to his attorney. George Wendt and…
Martin Urbina told police he didn’t remember shooting his friend. The last he could recall, it was not long after midnight on Thursday and he and the friend, Gilberto Perez, were sitting on his West Dallas front porch. Perez walked to the side of the house to take a piss…
Five North Texans have been arrested, and two more indicted, for their alleged roles in Medicare fraud schemes that the U.S. Department of Justice says netted more than $700 million. “This action represents the largest criminal health care fraud takedown in the history of the Department of Justice, and it adds to…
It was a rough Monday night in Pleasant Grove. And by night we mean the 10-minute period between 11:30 and 11:40 p.m. And by Pleasant Grove we’re referring specifically to a half-mile stretch of Lawnview Avenue. According to police, there were three separate incidents, all involving guns: one attempted car…
In the wake of James Boulware’s attack on Dallas police headquarters, one of the local police unions is sort of blaming the media and a nameless man who once filmed police and is not shooter/would-be bomber Boulware. The Dallas Police Association released a statement shortly after the attack on…
From the Dallas County sheriff comes this awesome video of Deputy Katrina Caldwell stopping James Boulware and his armored van. Dallas cops were chasing Boulware south on Interstate 45 early Saturday, away from police headquarters on Lamar Street, where Boulware had fired at officers and left pipe bombs. From the DSO: “Video…
