On Thursday a federal court in Ohio unsealed the affidavit of an FBI agent that chronicles the chase of a homegrown, ISIS-supporting terrorist cell during the lead-up to an armed attack on a Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland. The documents show that an FBI agent was in touch with one…
Around 9:30 am Wednesday morning, the jury seated to hear the murder trial of Daeveion Mangum files in and finds their seats. This is the second day of the trial. As they settle in, they are told they will be presented with some “graphic and disturbing” evidence — portions of the three…
On Wednesday the University of Texas’ Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis debuted a remarkable online tool that catalogs and documents each of the 6,913 people who have been killed by police or while in the custody of a state law enforcement agency since 2005. The deaths can be parsed…
The Dallas Cowboys first training camp practice is less than a week away and, as has so often been the case during the Jerry Jones era, the biggest story surrounding the team has nothing to do with football. As the Observer and other news outlets reported Friday morning, Ezekiel Elliott, the…
Barring Supreme Court intervention, Texas residents unable to secure photo identification before the November 8 general election will not be prevented from voting, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The state pushed the Texas Voter ID law as the last bulwark against a rising tide of voter…
Dez Bryant has finally responded to Royce West’s claim that the Cowboys’ star wideout destroyed a rent house owned by the attorney and state senator. Bryant didn’t specifically deny West’s charge that he left dog feces, wrecked carpets and a general layer of filth in his wake when he moved…
John Wiley Price’s federal corruption trial has been delayed again, this time until February 2017. This guarantees that Price will be sworn into his seat as Dallas County commissioner one more time before the case’s resolution. Price’s attorneys and federal prosecutors agreed to delay the trial in deference to the…
Thursday afternoon, a Collin County grand jury elected not to indict former McKinney police officer Eric Casebolt, who made national news when video surfaced of him pinning a pool party reveler to the ground last June. Casebolt and 11 other McKinney police officers were called to bust up a pool…
For now, the state of Texas is winning its battle with the federal government over President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Obama signed an executive order allowing the parents of U.S. residents brought to the United States as young children to receive the same protection from deportation that their…
Abigail Fisher’s long fight against the University of Texas’ admissions system is over. Fisher, who has since graduated from Louisiana State University, didn’t get into UT-Austin, her first-choice school, in 2008. She sued the school, claiming that the system it uses for admitting students who don’t automatically get in thanks…
One of the minor charges against David Daleiden, the self-proclaimed investigative journalist who secretly filmed Planned Parenthood clinics and officials across the country, has been dropped. Late Monday, Harris County Judge Diane Bull ruled that the indictment against Daleiden for attempting to buy or sell fetal tissue, a misdemeanor, should…
A Tarrant County grand jury decided not to indict former Arlington police officer Brad Miller for killing an unarmed 19-year-old man last August at a car dealership on Interstate 20. Miller, his training officer Dale Wiggins and four other officers answered an alarm at the Classic Arlington early on August…
Fifteen Arlington Police Department officers have been placed on leave with pay after a department investigation revealed that they said they made traffic stops that never happened. According to a department spokesman, a random audit revealed officers were reporting stops for which no digital video record existed. “All facts at…
Earlier this month, according to new information provided Wednesday by the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, District Attorney Susan Hawk went on vacation. Seeking, as her doctors have recommended, to find balance between her work and personal life, Hawk took off between May 2 and May 13. According to her…
The stakes, no matter who’s argument you believe, are incredibly high. If you take the state of Texas’ side, argued Tuesday in front of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, requiring specific, high-security photo identification from every voter in the state is essential to preventing widespread chaos and voter…
Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk was supposed to be at Solutions Outpatient Services 21st anniversary celebration to present an award Thursday night. She didn’t show up, and the banquet’s attendees were told she was sick. Friday morning, she was slated to be the keynote speaker at the Dallas Public Library’s…
Over the past week, Dallas has been the backdrop for what is destined in short order to be made into a TV true-crime documentary. On Friday, officials responding to a North Dallas house fire found the body of Ira Tobolowsky, an attorney from a prominent local family. The fire was soon…
In an attempt to head off concerns from conservatives about the type of judge he might nominate to the Supreme Court, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump released a list of 11 people he’d consider appointing to replace Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday afternoon. There are eight men and three…
Executing more inmates than any other state, Texas has perfected the art of ultimate punishment. Under the watch of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the executioner has employed a number of tactics to punish the innocent and the guilty from a noose around their neck until 1924 to a…
The Reverend Jeff Hood pushes against the yellow caution tape serving as a barrier to hold back the dozen protesters standing outside of the Huntsville prison where Pablo Vasquez, called a “satanist” and a “vampire” by the media, faces execution for a murder he committed nearly 20 years ago. Bald…
Former Texas A&M quarterback and 2012 Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel has been indicted by a Dallas County Grand Jury. He is charged with assault causing a bodily injury to a member of his household, a misdemeanor. Manziel faces up to a year in Dallas County Jail and a $4,000…
Merrick Garland is getting all the attention. President Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia seems just as unlikely to receive a confirmation vote as he did the day he was nominated, March 16. Both of Texas’ senators, John Cornyn and…
