The surveillance camera shows the whole room, not that there’s much to see. Mainly just a desk, an office chair, and a door leading to another, smaller room in the back. The footage from March 1, 2012, begins right at 4 p.m. with Michael Meyler, a 44-year-old Russian-born jeweler, occupying…
When Jerry Waller stepped out of his garage at 1 a.m. on May 28, he had no idea he’d encounter a couple of Fort Worth police officers. The 72-year-old grandfather had heard a noise and suspected burglars, so he roused himself, grabbed his gun, and went to check it out…
Yesterday marked 40 years since Dallas police officer Darrell Cain handcuffed 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez in a squad car and shot him in the head while trying to force him to confess to stealing a few bucks from a vending machine. Rodriguez’s death sparked outrage, which ultimately prompted significant reforms to…
This year the Texas legislature approved a measure that requires the Texas Juvenile Justice Department to cut $23 million from its budget and continue paying for five of its six secure facilities by the first day of 2014, meaning that one of those six facilities has to go. To meet…
House Republicans have now voted 39 times to repeal Obamacare. On a certain level, their persistence is admirable in the same way that I admire the way my dog never stops believing that this will be the time that he finally catches that squirrel. One’s esteem is diminished only slightly…
Fracking hearings held by the U.S. House almost always make for fine kabuki theater. Back when Rockwall’s skydiving septuagenarian nonagenarian Congressman Ralph Hall ran the show, you couldn’t glean much from the proceedings other than the impression that any scientific inquiry into the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing was just…
Yesterday, Councilman Dwaine Caraway issued a call for a formal, citywide discussion on race. It isn’t scheduled to take place until September 21, probably at City Hall, but it got a head start in the The Dallas Morning News’ comments section…
Journalism is dangerous work. One never knows who — or what — one might encounter. In the case of Fox 4’s Latoya Silmon, it was a rodent. She described her reaction on Facebook: Omg just screamed to the top if my lungs!!! A rat just crawled by us. We are…
The Environmental Protection Agency has a tendency to walk away from its own research suggesting that fracking pollutes drinking water. A Congressional hearing scheduled for today will look into why that is. The hearing, called “Lessons Learned: EPA’s Investigations of Hydraulic Fracturing,” will be held jointly by the House Science,…
Every week, managing editor Patrick Williams disappears into his office and reemerges a cranky, nicotine-addicted, third-person-referring superhero we like to call Buzz. Pity Texas Senator Ted Cruz. The poor man can’t even go to Iowa for a little praying, a little fundraising and a little defending of traditional marriage without…
The smoke has cleared since gunfire erupted on Babbling Brook Drive in Saginaw as police executed a search warrant on 17-year-old Tyler Holder, the teen accused of murdering 6-year-old Alanna Gallagher. Holder is reportedly in critical condition at a local hospital, and the police officer who was shot, identified yesterday…
Chart Westcott’s campaign to replace Dan Branch as Highland Park’s representative in the Texas House is barely two months old, but he already boasts a ridiculously impressive donor list. Billionaire Harold Simmons and his wife have each chipped in $25,000, as has former Cowboy Troy Aikman. Tom Hicks and Jerry…
Bitcoin, the decentralized online virtual currency, just hit a milestone of monetary street cred: It’s allegedly been used in a Ponzi scheme. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that it has charged Trendon T. Shavers of McKinney for defrauding investors in his Bitcoin company, Bitcoin Savings and Trust…
At roughly the 54-second mark of this 2011 video, Six Flags’ Texas Giant roller coaster reaches the apex of that first climb. Then, it descends at a 79-degree angle — almost straight down — for nearly 150 feet. At around 7 p.m. Friday, during this stomach-churning descent, 52-year-old Rosa Irene…
Craig Watson had seen his share of hard times since leaving the military. The 51-year-old was homeless, chronically unemployed and isolated from his family, who live 1,000 miles away in Florida. Still, things had been looking up as of late. He’d been in contact with the Veterans Administration, which was…
The three weeks that have passed since the body of 6-year-old Alanna Gallagher’s was found by teenage passersby in Saginaw, naked, bound and gagged, and wrapped in heavy plastic, have been unnervingly quiet. Police have been following up on leads, rummaging through Alanna’s things, and otherwise turning over every rock…
The seven-year-long fight by the city of Farmers Branch to purge itself of undocumented immigrants may be coming to a court-ordered close. Last year, a judge ordered the city to implement single-member City Council districts, which shook up the formerly lily-white city government with the May election of Ana Reyes…
The Cedar Hill Pet Memorial Project has already saved southern Dallas County’s premiere pet cemetery once. A year ago, the threat came from years of neglect and a property developer, Fazel Rahmani, who didn’t realize the parcel of land he was bidding on at the steps of downtown’s George Allen…
We’ve given up on following the ins-and-outs of Craig Watkins’ contempt case. It has long since passed the popcorn stage and descended into the incomprehensible legal muck. The back-and-forth between Watkins and his enemies has strayed so far that the actual matter at hand — whether the DA brought mortgage…
Over the weekend, the Observer received this message via email: I’m Joe Upshaw. I don’t know if you have heard of Flyboarding, but it’s pretty amazing. It’s the coolest, newest thing in extreme water sports. It’s like a jet pack attached to your feet on the lake that let’s you…
The 1973 death of Santos Rodriguez was almost unspeakably barbaric. The 12-year-old and his brother David were picked up from their grandparents’ house in what was then Little Mexico (now Uptown) in the early hours of July 24 and taken to a Fina station on Cedar Springs Road, where someone…
Barring a stay of execution, Douglas Feldman is scheduled to die in nine days. His petition for a state writ of habeas corpus based on ineffective assistance of counsel has gone nowhere. He claims his trial attorney failed to investigate the role his alleged bipolar disorder played in the murders…
