Crime

SMU's Sexual Assault Task Force Recommends Keeping Controversial Student Conduct Panels

Prosecutors recently dropped charges in one of the high-profile cases that spurred SMU to take a long look at its often baffling handling of sexual assaults. Last night, a week-and-a-half before another student is set to go to trial on charges that he raped a classmate in a dorm room, the university ... More >>

Katy Trail Robber's Tale of PCP Addiction, "Purse Snatching" Fails to Win Jury's Sympathy

Dominique Thornton did not testify in his trial for charges that he committed a string of armed robberies along the Katy Trail last May. It probably wouldn't have done any good. He was IDed by victims as the gunman in the heists, and police found Thornton's thumbprint on a stolen purse they later re ... More >>

The New Cane Rosso Was Robbed of its $2,500 Prosciutto Slicer Over the Weekend

Neighbors and pizza aficionados have been eagerly awaiting the opening of Jay Jerrier's second Cane Rosso, planned for Grand and Gaston just south of White Rock Lake, since word of its existence first leaked in November. It was slated to open in the middle of April -- just about now, in other words ... More >>

Three Gunman Tried to Rob a Retired Cop Near White Rock, Ran Away When He Drew First

As he walked along the sidewalk of his Far East Dallas apartment complex at 5:15 on Easter morning, a 24-year-old man heard someone call out from behind, asking him to hold up. He turned and saw three Hispanic men, clad in identical white T-shirts, hop out of a black Toyota Corolla. They simultaneo ... More >>

At the Mayor's Rally Against Domestic Violence, Big Promises and Some Mixed Messages

The couple started arguing on Saturday, around 3 in the morning, in a house near Fair Park. The man told the woman he hadn't forgotten their past arguments, all the times she had "disrespected" him. He shoved his palm hard against her face and forced her down against a desk. She fought him, pushing ... More >>

Here's Why Neither Texas Senator Voted for the Violence Against Women Act

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to renew the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). It now heads to the House for what will likely be an ugly battle over its renewal; President Obama used part of his State of the Union address last night to urge the House representatives to pass it. Th ... More >>

Stacey Hargraves' Mary Kay Job Didn't Pay Well, So He Became a Terrible Bank Robber

Stacey Hargraves was pulling in $300 per week from his job in the sanitation department at Mary Kay, but it never seemed to stretch far enough to support his wife, children and his propensity to gamble and go to sporting events. And so, according to the FBI, he walked into the Comerica Bank on Illi ... More >>

Former Ellis County Observer Publisher Joey Dauben Gets Three Ten-Year Sentences For Sexual Assault and Indecency With a Child

Two years ago, Joey Dauben was full-time small-town muckraker, publishing the Ellis County Observer and a string of other small papers, blending investigative stories with vicious gossip and baseless speculation at a rate of speed that thrilled and enraged his target audience. He focused intensely o ... More >>

The Story of the Handsome Guy Bandit Was Made for Hollywood*

(*The Handsome Guy Bandit thinks so, anyway.)

Cowboy Jerry Brown Was Sober When He Died in a Car Driven by His Drunk Teammate

The Associated Press is reporting that Jerry Brown, the Cowboys practice player who died in a drunk-driving accident last month, was sober at the time of the crash. Brown's teammate, Josh Brent, had a blood-alcohol level twice the legal limit when the car he was driving crashed. The two had been par ... More >>

Considered a Sex Offender Since He Was 12, a Plano Man is Finally Freed from the Registry

In May, the Texas Observer profiled Josh Gravens, a 25-year-old Plano man struggling to find a job and otherwise coping with life on the Texas Department of Public Safety's sex offender registry. His crime? Molesting his 8-year-old sister -- when he was 12. Gravens's case illustrates a flaw in the ... More >>

Obama & Romney's Country-Club Sopranos

American banks are on a massive crime spree. The Presidential candidates hope you won't notice.

A Highland Park Student is Charged with Rape, and Culture Map Kicks Off the Victim Blaming

On Tuesday, Ryan Adam Romo, an 18-year-old Highland Park High School senior and star baseball player, was charged with sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony. Romo is accused of raping a HPHS classmate after a Ghostland Observatory concert at the Palladium Ballroom Saturday night. Given ... More >>

Time For Chief Brown to Admit He's Fudging the Crime Numbers

There is good news to be found in the city's crime stats. For the ninth year in a row, Dallas is on pace to see a drop in its crime rate and, while violent crime is about flat, burglary and theft are down by 15 and 11 percent, respectively. The improving numbers are partly tied to a drop in crime n ... More >>

Three Men Robbed a Dallas Liquor Store with an AK-47, Then the Clerk Shot Back (Video)

If someone rolled into Unfair Park HQ and pointed an assault rifle at me while they stole my $800 and seven packs of Newports, I'd probably piss my pants and then go become a monk or a farmer, or maybe a farmer-monk. The owner of McGriff's Beer & Wine are not so fainthearted.

Domestic Violence Murders Up 25 Percent in Dallas This Year; DPD Beefing Up Its Staffing

The death of Deanna Cook, who police believe was murdered by her ex-husband as 911 operators listened, was a rare public reminder that instances of domestic violence can turn fatal, with alarming frequency. So far this year, 19 PEOPLE have been murdered in acts of domestic violence, few of which rec ... More >>

Walk Like a Woman

Kimberly McCarthy, Lancaster Woman Convicted of Murdering Neighbor For Crack Money, Set to Die Jan. 29

It was a grisly scene Lancaster police found on July 22, 1997: Dorothy Booth, a 71-year-old retired psychology professor, stabbed to death on the floor of her dining room stabbed, her left ring finger severed from her hand. The evidence quickly led police to Kimberly McCarthy, Booth's next-door nei ... More >>

Mexico's Magical Homicides

Court Drops Gypsy Tea Room Skinhead's Lesser of Two '05 Convictions

The 2004 summer night when David Cunniff took his two teen daughters to an Old 97's show at the Gypsy Tea Room rattled Deep Ellum to the core. How it all went down depends who you ask, but the end result left Cuniff bloodied and beaten to the point that friends and family questioned whether he would ... More >>

Crime Keeps Going Down in Dallas, Except for Rape. But There's an Explanation for That.

There was some good news in the crime statistics presented to the City Council's Public Safety Committee a few moments ago. Burglaries, the bane of the Dallas Police Department in recent years, are down by double-digits thanks to ongoing efforts to shut down fencing operations through which thieves ... More >>

Dallas Police Has Even More Explanation for its Response to That Whole Katy Trail Thing

The Dallas Police Department is continuing to explain away -- and maybe overcompensate for -- their initial silence concerning the armed robberies on the Katy Trail and the dozen-or-so incidents police believe they're linked to.A pair of press releases from police hit the inbox yesterday evening, on ... More >>

Anthony Blue, Bank Robber Turned in by Mom, Gets Five Years. Think He'll Write Home?

It was back in January when we first introduced you to young Anthony Blue, a 19-year-old man trying to make a go in the bank-robbing field. He was off to a decent start, actually: In June of last year, he had walked into a Garland bank and slipped the teller a note -- "50's 100's and no body gets hu ... More >>

Dallas County Does a Three-Fer in Exonerations

The number of convicts being freed after serving prison time for crimes they didn't commit keeps mounting in Dallas County, with Friday bringing a rare triple exoneration for three men wrongly accused of robbery. On November 17, 1994, five teenagers roamed the parking lot near the Eckerd drugstore ... More >>

Dallas Security Agency Launches New Service For Victims of Domestic Violence

Before this morning, we had never heard of Reynolds Protection, a Dallas purveyor of bodyguards, or its owner, Chad Reynolds, who judging from his bio photo is roughly the size of a refrigerator. A very bald, imposing refrigerator. But this morning Reynolds Protection sent around a press release ann ... More >>

Columbine, Hollywood, and the National Obsession That Never Ends

Thirteen years and a hundred school shootings later, why is Hollywood still obsessed with this one?

Irving-Based MADD Is Now Also Against Promoter Who Didn't Deliver NASCAR, Money

​Google the phrase "SponsorMonsters," and the first thing that pops up is an item from the Mothers Against Drunk Driving website touting the John Carpenter Freeway-based organization's partnership with it. As in: "For 2011, Sponsor Monsters donated their lead sponsorship position to MADD and will ... More >>

19-Year-Old Garland Man Pleads Guilty to Being a Bank Robber After His Mom Turns Him In

​That photo you see at right comes from the F.B.I.'s Bandit Tracker website, which we've perused in the past. It was snapped June 14 of last year at a State Bank of Texas branch in Garland, off IH-30. The bandit in question: 19-year-old Anthony Blue of Garland. Which we now know thanks to Anthony' ... More >>

Dallas Federal Grand Jury Indicts Sam Hurd, Co-Conspirator For Cocaine Distribution

​Seems like only three weeks ago Sam Hurd was just another former wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys who was on his road to journeyman status, which, in his case, ran through Soldier Field. Then it was revealed: Even before his acquisition by the Chicago Bears, the San Antonio native fancied him ... More >>

Tarrant County to Publicly Shame Drunk Drivers. Dallas Isn't Ready to Go That Far.

If your New Year's weekend plans include a destination in Tarrant County and you have a nasty and terribly irresponsible habit of driving drunk, your boozebaggery and bad decisions can make you famous -- which is to say, infamous. The Tarrant County District Attorey's Office will publish the names o ... More >>

How Effective Are Bait Cars, Anyway?

​No doubt you've seen the signs like the one at right; they've been around since 2004. The Dallas Police Department was among the first in the country to launch the Auto Theft Tracking Program, which involves putting monitoring devices in bait cars that the DPD can track and control after they've ... More >>

In the Boy Scouts' Police-in-Training Program, a History of Abuse

Dozens of teenage Explorers have been sexually assaulted by the cops they hoped to emulate.

So Close to Getting Away With Armored Truck Robbery, This Is What Finally Did Them In

​The U.S. Attorney's Office sends word that a man named Ennis Harris Jackson will be going to federal prison for more than 17 years for his role in holding up a Loomis armored truck in May 2010 outside a Mesquite Bank of America branch. Jackson was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Barbar ... More >>

Tower Heist: Lobby vs. Penthouse

Stealing from the rich to ... oh, whatever. Funny is the message.

Thirteen Locals, Who Feds Say Are Linked to Los Zetas Cartel, Indicted For Coke Trafficking

​Stories linking Los Zetas -- a drug cartel consisting of, among others, former Mexican Army commandos -- with North Texas have been around for years. Take this story, from three years ago, connecting a Collin County deputy constable with a cousin said to be working for the cartel. In March, The N ... More >>

Don Hardge Fired His AK-47 Into a Crowd Of Teens, But He Swears He's No Killer

The family of a dead teenage girl might disagree, even if the justice system didn't.

They Said They Were Selling Interests in Oil Wells. Instead, They Were Buying Picassos.

​Actually, it was just one Picasso -- along with "real estate, boats and other personal water craft, luxury vehicles, artwork, furniture, antiques, musical instruments, jade, expensive jewelry and wine." Still. That's not how Tony Rand and his boys Greg and Bill were supposed to be spending more t ... More >>

BREAKING NEWS: Arrest Warrants Issued for Okolo and Aqib Talib

​This just in, stemming from this, and this. From the Garland Police Department: Garland investigators have obtained warrants for Aqib Talib and Okolo Talib in connection with a disturbance police responded to on March 21 in the 900 block of Green Pond Drive. On Monday, March 21, just before 7:30 ... More >>

Rawlings, Kunkle Dispute Cause of Domestic Violence During Food Bank Debate

Okpa, Kunkle, Natinsky and Rawlings at North Texas Food Bank debate this morning​There was a rather interesting exchange between mayoral candidates Mike Rawlings and David Kunkle at this morning's mayoral debate at the North Texas Food Bank. And it began with a question posed to all four candidate ... More >>

Tomorrow, Turning Criminals Into Unwitting Artists In the Cedars' CorinthPark Studio

​A large-scale vandalization job at South Dallas's CorinthPark warehouse-workspace will be turned into an gallery exhibition in the Cedars tomorrow during the Cedars Open Studios Eighth Annual Studio Tour. Thousands of dollars worth of damage was done over a period of days last month by a "jealous ... More >>

Once, He Ran West Dallas Drug Houses. For the Next 30 Years, He'll Be in State, Federal Prison.

Click to embiggen to see where some of the West Dallas Gator Boys' drug houses were​Back in August Sam told you all about Tyrone Weatherall, a leader of the West Side Gator Boys -- and an exotic animal collector -- who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distrib ... More >>

A Bank Robbery, With a Baby on Board, Lands Getaway Driver a 22-Year Prison Sentence

Bandit TrackerUnrelated, but while we're on the subject, Austin PD's looking for a man who last week robbed a bank wearing a George Bush mask.​Surely you recall the tale of Inequa Rushing and Waylon McDonald? No? Then a refresher: In late January, the twosome robbed a bank at East R.L. Thornton Fr ... More >>

Pinalcchio: Renowned Forensics Experts Say a Pinal County Deputy's High-Profile Tale About Getting Shot After Encountering Drug Smugglers Doesn't Add Up

DPD Reminds, If You Drink and Drive This Long Holiday Weekend, You May Also Give Blood

​Back in June 2009, then-Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle told then-Dallas Observer-er Kimberly Thorpe why he was (and, no doubt, remains) a big fan of the department's so-called No-Refusal DWI Initiative, which allows officers who pull over suspected drunk drivers to take and test two vials' wort ... More >>

Unlike refugees from other troubled countries, only a fraction of Mexicans seeking U.S. asylum are accepted- no matter how horrible their wounds or their stories.

Access Denied

DA Craig Watkins: Punishment or Treatment For DWI Offenders is a "False Choice"

​No doubt you caught at least some of The Dallas Morning News's recently wrapped three-part series on Texas's trouble with properly punishing drunken drivers. Probation instead of prison; back behind the wheel instead of behind bars. Says Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins in a missive ... More >>

Dallas Gang Leader, Drug Dealer and Apparent Exotic Animal Lover Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy

We're thinking the kiddos at Pinkston High School weren't having a tough time getting high last year. (The markers are streets where drug houses were located.)​Tyrone Weatherall, the 35-year-old leader of the "West Side Gator Boys," pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to possess wi ... More >>

Illegal Immigrants, Desperate To Find Work In The U.S., Risk Kidnapping, Rape and Murder From Those Smuggling Them Across the Border

ICE Says More Than 100 Were Rounded Up During Five-Day Multi-Agency Anti-Gang Sweep

​This just in from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: The agency, along with the Office of Homeland Security Investigations National Gang Unit and an alphabet's soup worth of local law enforcement agencies, spent the last five days sweeping Dallas-Fort Worth for gang members and their a ... More >>

Six Months After La Familia Bust, Dallas Boss Pleads Guilty to Meth Trafficking

Kimberly ThorpeSome of the drugs and money seized by law-enforcement officials in the fall of 2009​We were there in October of last year, when the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, the I.R.S., the U.S. Secret Service and Texas Air National Guard -- and every other law-enforcing acronym -- ... More >>