A little before 1 a.m. this morning, a 34-year-old man broke into a hearse at Hughes Funeral Home in northwest Dallas. He managed to take the casket out and abscond before officers arrived on scene. This was the high point of his night, we’re guessing. With the casket in tow,…
In the next three to four months, all Dallas police officers on patrol will be equipped with new, smart Tasers that are safer than their predecessors, Chief David Brown said at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. After the council approved a five-year deal with Taser International Inc. for the purchase and…
At the latest town hall meeting held by District Attorney Craig Watkins, Dallas Police Chief David Brown, speaking to a primarily black crowd, said a program to educate young officers about the police department’s history with the city was in the works. He seemed to think it was badly needed…
The offer comes as a surprise. “Now that I have your contact info,” a nice woman from the Northeast Tarrant County Tea Party emails me after I ask a question for a different story, “I will forward to you a press invite to interview Sheriff Joe Arpaio, if you’re interested.”…
Last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals received a letter signed by more than 50 Texas law enforcement officials who support same-sex marriage, according to the Texas Tribune. Among them was Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, the county’s first Hispanic, first female and first lesbian sheriff. When we…
Less than two weeks after three people were arrested for filming Arlington police officers conducting a traffic stop, the Dallas Police Department announced Wednesday it will offer a class for law enforcement officers on people’s rights to film them in public spaces. Also, the department, along with national journalism organizations,…
The Dallas Police Association has a 10-point plan for reforming the department to help fix a problem with low moral among its members. Among other things, the plan calls for changes to policies regarding when police can use force, and new rules for foot chases and job transfers. And in…
A national organization of black lawyers and judges is still awaiting a response from the Dallas Police Department to the group’s recent request for 10 years worth of public information “regarding the number of individuals who have been killed, racially profiled, wrongfully arrested and/or injured while pursued or in police…
District Attorney Craig Watkins’ second town hall meeting on police violence following the killing of an unarmed black teenager in Missouri was much more subdued than the first, though the message was much the same: I’m one of you, and I understand where you’re coming from, but things have changed…
Three people on a “cop watch” were arrested while videotaping a traffic stop by an Arlington police officer late Saturday night. The people are part of organizations Texas Cop Block and the Tarrant County Peaceful Streets Project, whose members tape police in a effort to hold them accountable for their…
For years, Luminant’s Big Brown coal-fired plant has been described as one of the worst air polluters in the state, sitting at or near the top of the EPA’s list of plants spewing nitrogen oxide, which can cause respiratory illnesses. So, it would seem a ripe target for a Clean…
Friday and Saturday, the Omni Dallas hosts Americans for Prosperity’s “Defending the American Dream” conference. Featured speakers include Governor Rick Perry, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Jeb Hensarling and Indiana governor Mike Pence. We sent two of our reporters to get the full experience. Political rhetoric on both sides has the…
Since August 10, Dallas police officers have shot six people, killing four of them. Most were armed and a threat to others. One, Andrew Scott Gaynier, was unarmed, though police say he lunged at the off-duty officer who shot him. The events surrounding the shooting of an unarmed teen in…
An off-duty Dallas police officer shot and killed a man police said is a suspect in a fatal shooting in Northwest Dallas early Wednesday. Around 12:40 a.m., two men began to quarrel at the pumps of a gas station near Midpark Road and Central Expressway, police said. One of the…
Monday morning in southern Dallas, Steven Douglas rammed his truck into a car, breaking out the driver’s side window. It belonged to the mother of his children. With her three kids, she had been trying to run away from him. He’d visited her apartment that morning, and, when she managed…
In the midst of a string of recent police shootings, the Dallas Police Association, the city’s largest police union, has called for all officers to be outfitted with body cameras that record the officers’ every move. And the union’s receiving support from a group not generally considered an ally: the…
The man heard the first gun shot down the street and moved the kids from the front yard into the house. Then he heard four more. The man, a neighbor who requested we don’t name him, says he wasn’t surprised there was a shooting in the area, a tree-lined street…
As midnight rolled around last night, a police car with officers Jay Jankowski and Michelle Herczeg pulled into the rear lot of the Grand Hotel Dallas, just off LBJ Freeway, where they saw an idling truck. They thought the truck had been stolen, police say, so they went to investigate…
The woman in the passing car shouted, “Black power!” And the gun-rights advocates lined up on the sidewalk outside Forest Avenue Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard returned the call. In the heat of a Wednesday afternoon, about 30 black men and a few women, dressed head-to-toe in…
Norm Hitzges leans into the microphone, ready to bear the joke’s brunt. He’s sitting in KTCK-AM 1310 The Ticket’s fourth-floor studio on Victory Plaza as the digital clock’s red numbers count off the first minutes of the noon hour. Four TVs decorate the wall to his right, flickering ESPN, NBA…
You likely remember Ethan Couch, the then-16-year-old boy who, while drunk and stoned on Valium, drove his car into four people, killing them, and then got 10 years probation because of his privileged upbringing that the judge termed “affluenza”? Yeah, pretty sure you remember him. Well: His father, Fred Couch,…
Last week, Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins announced the formation of a new Civil Rights Unit, a two-person team that will investigate shootings by officers independent of the police department. Chief David Brown supports the unit. “You can’t have enough oversight when it comes to police-involved shootings,” he said at…
