Ryan Mills snaps black surgical gloves on his hands and plucks a syringe off a paper-shrouded tray. Its 10-gauge needle gleams under the fluorescent lights. Hidden inside the tip is a half-inch long electronic implant. Mills prepares for the procedure with professional quickness and ease that come with experience. He’s…
TCU quarterback and Dallas native Trevone Boykin was charged with a felony in San Antonio early Thursday morning after a bar fight spiraled out of control. Like many brawls of its kind, it started with “some jaw jackin’ at the bar about the game” between patrons and members of the team…
A tornado outbreak struck North texas Saturday, leaving houses in Garland demolished and at least 5 dead. Here is how the drama unfolded on Twitter, as it happened. …
The “geek” label is not the derogatory term it once was. It’s an all-encompassing term for a cultural subgroup that spans all demographics. The common denominator is that we take our movies seriously. The Observer canvassed the spectrum of Dallas-area geeks for their initial reactions to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a significant…
Children and stoners of East Dallas rejoice — neighborhood favorite Hypnotic Donuts is opening a new joint next door, this time vending a wider variety of sweets. “We live near the doughnut shop, and I know there’s nowhere to get ice cream,” says owner James St. Peter. “The joke is,…
Workers hadn’t even patched the bullet holes in Dallas police headquarters, put there by crazed shooter James Boulware, when City Hall promised to better secure the building. Police Chief David Brown called it “critical work.” After three months, the city allocated $1 million from the 2015-16 budget for police…
NUEVO LAREDO–It’s nearly 10:30 on a Thursday night and 23-year-old Les is on the street, prowling for women. He’s come to the right–if not necessarily the proper–place. “It’s much more organized than I expected,” Les says, walking past the police station in La Zona Rosa and taking in the neon…
HUNTSVILLE–Stampy the nervous beagle weaves through the metal chairs, braving a tangle of feet and ignoring the hands that sporadically descend to pet him. The dog finds his destination by scent and stops, lifting a leg to spray the weathered base of a wooden pole. His display takes the attention…
“…Persons of humanitarian and reformist disposition often go…to the Balkan peninsula to see who was in fact ill-treating whom…all came back with a pet Balkan people established in their hearts as suffering and innocent, eternally the massacre and never the massacrer.” –Rebecca West in “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” (1938)…
Welcome to Monday morning at the corner of Hermosa and Peavy. It’s a mess. Approach the ravaged intersection like a crime scene: There’s one deep wound along the southwest corner, a 3-foot-long, 18-inch-deep pothole half filled with water. There’s a collapsed square of temporary asphalt in the center of the…
Jeanette Lee points to the pepper spray on her key chain lying on the table at St. Luke’s Love Field United Methodist Church. “I have one on each key chain, and I have an authentic police whistle,” she says. “Once I found a bullet in here, but I don’t know…
These days, the front door of Beal Aerospace is locked, and knocks go unanswered. Three vehicles dot the otherwise empty parking lot, testifying that there is still life at the headquarters of the defunct satellite launch company. All but a handful of the 200-plus engineers, rocket scientists, and assorted staff…
There is a faint but distinct tearing sound as Billy Murkledove flips through a stack of old photos, each showing a group of smiling youths. The pictures are stuck together from age; Murkledove has collected them for almost a decade. “This boy here, he got 40 years,” Murkledove says, indicating…
When C.A. Reynerson walked into Keith’s Comics in September 1999, it was clear he wasn’t looking forward to catching up on the action in the second installment of the anime comic Demon Beast Invasion: The Fallen. He was looking for a case. Reynerson, a detective in the vice section of…
Ed, the lawyer, was prone one second, ramrod straight the next. It was a hazy hour between November 7 and 8. His face was slack with drink, with bloodshot eyes and sallow skin that made his cheekbones jut out like volcanic rocks from the surf. “What the hell?” he asked,…
Experience has made Haifa Bale tough. She can speak about being beaten by her first husband, about being separated from her sick mother, about being denied access to her native country, and about the grim reality of living through an arranged marriage without any self-pity. She won’t cry until she…
Felix Lozada, Dallas Park and Recreation Board member, is sleeping in his chair. Board member Dwaine Caraway, sporting a gold crucifix and a Gore-Lieberman pin, is swiveling his chair back and forth, looking at the scene from behind gold-rimmed glasses. He checks his watch. It’s 10:30 on a Thursday morning,…
INDIA DMZ, 2022–The first mine exploded under an armored personnel carrier. It went up with a bright orange flash and a miserable chorus of faint shrieks. The fire and the cries faded fast. Cursing the Americans, the Taliban commander ordered his armored column to halt and backtrack, waiting for the…
It’s easy to spot the city’s most pressing issues. In fact, it’s impossible to miss them when you’re driving to a city council member’s Town Hall meeting. The experience of jerking into and out of potholes, rolling past piles of uncollected garbage, and dodging three-legged, mange-ridden hounds shows you exactly…
Dick Simkanin lights a cigarette, leans back in his chair behind the desk in his office, and casually speaks the words that could ruin his business and land himself and his employees in jail.”We at Arrow Custom Plastics choose not to withhold any federal income taxes from our employees,” he…
Charlie Whitney wasn’t thinking about personality tests last month when he walked into Dave & Buster’s looking for work as a bartender. His previous experiences with interviewing and job hunting were exceptionally humane: references from acquaintances, informal meetings with bar owners, and a firm pressing of palms as a contract…
It’s the Fourth of July, and the protesters are sitting in the shade under trees near the John F. Kennedy memorial. A replica of the Statue of Liberty stands in the sun with signs reading “Amnesty now!” leaning against her. Another proclaims, “George Washington was an immigrant too!” Television news…
