Crime & Police

The family of the Rev. Patrick Koch, former president of Dallas’ Jesuit College Preparatory High School, is challenging Koch’s inclusion on a list of priests “credibly accused” of child sex abuse released by the Catholic Diocese of Dallas in late January. Family members from across the United States, according to…

One of the biggest takeaways from reporting on Dallas’ never-ending quest to calculate the level of police staffing needed to keep the city as safe and livable as possible is that so many people think they already know the answer. Cop union leaders, City Council members and the police chief…

Early last Friday morning, a woman was raped in an Uptown parking garage as she walked away from her car on the Howell Street garage’s first level. Last Friday night, the police arrested a suspect matching the description given to them by the victim, thanks to a phoned-in tip. A…

Stephen Young has a great piece up on our website now analyzing police staffing in Dallas and whether we need more, fewer or the same number of officers than we already have. As he explains in his story, the overall problem of police staffing is surprisingly complex, with many moving…

Sexual assault survivors and advocacy groups joined with Republican and Democratic legislators at the Texas Capitol on Monday to tout 20 filed or soon-to-be-filed bills aimed at helping victims of sexual assault seek justice in the aftermath of their attacks. The proposed changes begin in both the House and Senate…

In the Tuesday morning television coverage of the four Houston police officers who were shot the night before, the most heartbreaking and infuriating words came from Joe Gamaldi, president of the Houston Police Officers Union. “We are sick and tired of having targets on our back,” Gamaldi said. “We are…

Maybe North Texas has already sprawled too far. Tuesday morning, Frisco police issued their latest alert about a coyote attack, continuing a wave that first struck the city last year. This time, cops got a call at about 7 a.m. that a jogger had been attacked about 20 minutes earlier…

Dallas Police Department officers are looking for a teenager they believe shot and killed an former Highland Park High School student during an apparent drug deal gone wrong. According to a description from witnesses who accompanied the victim, Joseph Pintucci, to the garage, the 18-year-old’s shooter is Latino, between 18…

Citizens Matter. Yeah, right. We all know what that means. Citizens Matter is what the group opposed to reforming the Dallas Citizens Police Review Board is calling itself. So the name is contrapuntal to Black Lives Matter. Citizens Matter means White Lives Matter. And, look, far be it from me…

The siren song of early-morning Whataburger appears to have been a bit too much for former Cowboys running back Darren McFadden, according to the McKinney Police Department. Employees at the Whataburger on West University Drive in McKinney called police shortly after midnight early Monday to report a man sleeping in…

A 15-year-old male is under lock and key in a Dallas juvenile detention center charged with the rapes of five women and the murder of one, awaiting a court hearing at which a judge may do what no one else has been able in 15 years — turn the kid…

Steven Mark Chaney is innocent, Texas’ highest criminal court ruled Wednesday, ending a three-decades-long ordeal for the Dallas man. Chaney, the court said, did not kill John and Sally Sweek, a Dallas couple found stabbed to death in their apartment in 1987. Prosecutors, who told jurors at Chaney’s 1987 trial…

“What is your first memory of racism? How did it affect you?” “What most frustrates you about current race relations in America?” “Do you think your race changes the intensity of your reaction to Botham Jean’s shooting than for a person of a different race? If so, how?” These questions…

University of Texas at Dallas senior Jacob Anderson has been banned from the school’s campus, university President Richard Benson announced late Wednesday afternoon. Earlier this week, Anderson agreed to a controversial plea deal in McLennan County following allegations that he raped a fellow student while president of a Baylor University fraternity…

As the Dallas Police Department continues to fight high attrition rates and low staffing levels, department officials said Monday they want to get rid of one of DPD’s most onerous requirements for new recruits. Assuming the Dallas City Council signs off on the change, the department will take on recruits…

Dallas confronts an enormous moral and psychological challenge in the case of former Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger, charged with murder in the shooting death of Botham Jean, a young accountant killed Sept. 6 in his own apartment. This is one we have to get right, and it won’t be…

A Dallas County Grand Jury indicted former Dallas Police Department Officer Amber Guyger on murder charges related to her shooting and killing her neighbor, Botham Jean, in early September. Guyger shot Jean in his apartment, believing he was a burglar.  Guyger entered Jean’s apartment on Sept. 6 after completing her…

A 32-year-old Dallas Police Department senior corporal has been arrested on revenge porn charges, DPD announced in a brief statement Thursday. Tarrant County authorities have charged Alexander Cleland with Unlawful Disclosure or Promotion of Intimate Visual Material, a Class A misdemeanor. Cleland turned himself in to Tarrant County officials in Keller…

After more than a year of makeshift enforcement for crimes like gambling and prostitution, the Dallas Police Department is finally set to roll out its reconstituted vice unit later this week, Assistant Chief Paul Stokes said Monday. Twenty-one officers will staff the new unit, three-quarters of the number that worked…

We have one of those doorbells you can see out of. You know what I mean. With a TV camera in it? You can talk to people through your doorbell. We were early adopters. When we first got our two-way doorbell, they were still fairly uncommon. We could still get…