Christopher Key seems to have set the ball rolling. Last week, his lawyer filed a lawsuit claiming his boss, Neil Chopra, at a Carrollton janitorial services company sexually harassed him by punching him in the testicles and, one time, stun-gunning him in the groin. On Monday, three more employees filed…
Jonathan Holden did not meet a good end. He suffered from psychotic episodes, delusions and paranoid schizophrenia. He used meth. About two years ago, because he broke into a car to escape a cold night, he found himself in a high-risk unit of a jail in Fort Worth. One day,…
You could be dealing with a mosquito-virus one-two punch this season. Along with West Nile, a new virus could rear its ugly head in Texas. It’s name is chikungunya, and it’s pronounced “chicken-goon-ya.” This mosquito season already has one twist to it. Because of the drought, mosquitoes that carry West…
Total Building Maintenance, Inc., in Carrollton, is in the business of cleanliness. For its corporate clients, it cleans carpets and washes windows, among other janitorial duties. But if a new lawsuit filed recently is to be believed, the company, especially its chief operations officer, Neil Chopra, has been engaged in…
Texas, as you may have intuited, is hot, but Texas prisons, as you may have heard, are hotter. Since 2007, 14 inmates, including nine in 2011 alone, have died from heat-related illnesses, according to a 2014 report from UT Law School’s Human Rights Clinic. Larry McCollum’s death received most of…
Back in 2006, William Clark Perschman robbed 18 banks in Dallas. He would put a T-shirt over his head to conceal his identity, and it earned him the less-than-stellar nickname of “T-Shirt Bandit.” He was caught and went to federal prison. Five years later, he was released on a supervised…
Back in 2005, a woman, living on disability in Chicago, was contacted online by a man, he apparently as lonely as she. He promised to marry her, said he could cure her health woes, according to the case laid out by prosecutors. Before they could be together, though, he told…
The camera guy was already there when Detective Scott Sayers pulled up to the 79-year-old victim’s Earlywood Drive home in March of last year, ready to gather footage for A&E’s true-crime reality show, The First 48. There was a phone number detectives could call to notify a camera crew that…
Texas has always had its share of great characters and story lines. Davy Crockett and the Alamo. Lyndon B. Johnson and Texas politics. Rick Perry and, well, whatever he happened to say on a particular day. Recently, though, there seems to have been some coastal poaching on our dry land…
Between 1 and 7 p.m. today, you can be picked up by Optimus Prime. More or less. Less, mostly. But more than usual, definitely. As part of the promotion for the fourth installment in Michael Bay’s Transformers series, the flame-specked semi is roaming Dallas…
The worst-paid workers at Dallas County’s Parkland Hospital make $8.78 an hour, a buck and change more than the federal rate of $7.25. But that’s still not enough to live, hospital officials said this week, so they recommended increasing the base salary of entry-level positions to $10.25 an hour. If…
Toni Gallego knew what she was going to get her granddaughter for her birthday. She knew the store where she was going to get it, too. She shopped at Target all the time, buying formula and diapers. Then she saw the picture: long, black rifles in the big box store’s…
Your browser does not support iframes. Texas Rangers outfielder Engel Beltre fractured his tibia. Catcher Geovany Soto tore his meniscus. First baseman Prince Fielder required neck surgery. And those are just a few examples of the Rangers’ injuries woes. With starting first baseman Mitch Moreland having surgery on his ankle…
Texas’ historic drought is, at least, good for one thing: fewer mosquitoes. But according to researchers at UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth, the mosquitoes that survive could be bigger, meaner and more persistent. Mosquitoes grow in stagnant water. If there are fewer mosquitoes, there are more nutrients to…
Pamela Jones is a teacher at DeSoto’s alternative high school. She’s 35. She has a husband and four kids. She works for Athletes for Change, whose mission to “provide exceptional role models” to young people. If authorities are right, she has an odd sense of what makes a great role…
In court documents, he is referred to as “Ruben.” We don’t know his real name, and we don’t know if he was the first to make contact with the now-27-year-old Gerardo Cisneros, aka “Tatuado” or, simply, “Jerry.” But we do know that in November 2012, Ruben made a call to…
There’s plenty of money to be made in public education. You just need to be in the right job to make it. And once you’re in that job, it helps if you can get fired. Take Walter Dansby. The former superintendent of the Fort Worth Independent School District, Dansby resigned…
There was a time, not long ago, when police routinely issued tickets to Texas middle and high school students for chewing gum, wearing skirts a little too short and turning their desktops into pillows. Students who swore were ticketed for disorderly conduct. An 11-year-old Galveston boy even faced criminal assault…
It all started with a letter. Dallas Police Association President Ron Pinkston sent one to city officials in April, accusing Dallas Police Chief David Brown of allowing a recruit who continually failed his Police Vehicle Operations Course test to retake it until he passed. Brown put Internal Affairs on the…
