Crime & Police

A killer gets off with two years after shooting an Arlington teacher. Now the victim’s family lives in fear and anger.

Dallas Police arrested a 22-year-old local man for the Sunday night murder of Martha Teran. Lonzell Hunter, according to police, shot Teran, killing her in the parking lot of Dallas’ Medieval Times on I-35. Teran, 42, was in the parking lot to sell an iPhone 7, according to police. Hunter,…

Dallas Cowboys rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott can’t move fast enough to escape the shadow of domestic violence accusations. The Columbus, Ohio, city attorney’s office declined to press charges against Elliott, due to conflicting statements from witnesses and Elliott’s ex-girlfriend and accuser, Tiffany Thompson. But yesterday Tobert S. Tobias, the assistant…

Over the weekend, law enforcement officers in West Texas finished searching landfills in Alpine, Presidio and Odessa without finding any sign of missing Sul Ross University student Zuzu Verk. Monday, the Alpine Police Department increased the reward for information to $200,000, raised entirely through private donations. Verk graduated from Timber Creek…

At its core, the Texas-tied, India-based, multi-million dollar phone scam ring broken up by the feds this month was a sophisticated exploitation of the unsophisticated. Now, those the U.S. Department of Justice are accusing of fraud are facing decades in jail and millions of dollars in fines and restitution. Here’s…

Dallas police reported two shootings by officers in the past five days, both of them working plainclothes investigations.   Yesterday at about 9:40 a.m., a plainclothes cop working the 3500 block of Virginia Boulevard spotted what he was looking for — a vehicle that he believed has been carjacked the night…

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick announced plans for the upcoming Texas legislative session that he says will ease the burden on the Texans he says “stand between society and anarchy.” His ideas blend two of Patrick’s favorite political causes: love for law enforcement and hatred of property taxes. “We want…

The number of murders in Dallas, and the number of those murders that are being solved, are both headed in the wrong direction. So far in 2016, 138 people have been murdered in Dallas, two more than were killed in Dallas during all of 2015. Monday morning, Dallas Assistant Police…

Not that newly retired Dallas police Chief David Brown is asking for the Observer’s advice, but that’s never stopped us before, so here goes: Sic transit gloria mundi. That’s Latin for “the glories of the world are fleeting” or, less literally, “don’t get a big head, pal.” It’s what slaves…

Sitting in an armchair with an ungainly tangle of microphone cables pinned to his chest, David Pughes spoke to members of the media Friday about his new job as interim chief of the Dallas Police Department. The job came as a surprise for Pughes who says that he had no prior warning…

The woman accused of masterminding the murder of Dallas dentist Kendra Hatcher is, finally, in Dallas County Jail after the FBI turned her over to Dallas Police Thursday night. Thursday, Mexican officials handed Brenda Delgado over to the FBI at Mexico City International Airport, ending a months long standoff over…

The CEO of Backpage.com, the Dallas-based adult classified website, was arrested Thursday for human trafficking. Carl Ferrer was picked up at Houston International Airport after a return flight from Amsterdam. Ferrer faces charges in California following a joint investigation of the California and Texas attorneys general. “Making money off the…

Wednesday morning, the Dallas Police Department arrested a Dallas ISD teacher for the “continuous sexual abuse of a child,” a first-degree felony. Jorge Ruiz, 53, is currently being held at Lew Sterrett jail. His bail is $100,000. Ruiz has been placed on administrative leave from his job teaching pre-kindergarten at…

Officially, David Brown’s six-year tenure as Dallas Police Chief ended at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Brown left the department two and a half weeks earlier than originally announced to meet a pension cut-off. His last day went off without much fanfare. Of course, there were TV cameras at Jack Evans…

The city of Dallas is going to be getting some extra help hiring the 549 cops the Dallas Police Department intends to bring on during the next year. Monday afternoon, as part of United States Community Policing Week, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that the city of Dallas will…

Since Vandagriff’s murder a few weeks after she started college, police investigators, the public and her friends and family are left to wonder what might have possessed a 30-year-old man who once posted “life is precious” on his Facebook page to murder, mutilate and burn a young woman whom friends and family remember as someone who loved to laugh and everyone loved.

Beginning a week ago Saturday, Sept. 25, eight people have been murdered in the city of Dallas. After the violent week, Dallas’ murder count for 2016 sits at 137, already one more than the 136 total homicides Dallas Police investigated in 2015. Sixty-seven of those murders remain on the police…

Ah, the airport. It’s where national security, the transportation industry, human psychology, aeronautical physics and government personnel collide in an awkward dance. Add into this mix the police who respond to Transportation Security Administration drug-related discoveries, and a collection of travelers that for whatever reason caught their attention.  The Dallas…

Guillermo Luviano-Franco, or Silvestre Franco-Luviano — depending on which of his aliases he happens to be using — shouldn’t have been in the United States for the weekend crime spree that ended with his arrest at a Georgetown apartment complex, Hector Gomez, a deputy marshal with the Lone Star Fugitive…

Following two robberies and one sexual assault, the Dallas Police Department has stepped up patrols in the area, Deputy Chief Lonzo Anderson said Wednesday. All three crimes occurred over the last two weeks, Anderson said; the police suspects two young black men between the ages between 15 and 20. Anderson…

Police have detailed the evidence against Charles Bryant, the Haslet man accused of dismembering and burning a TWU student earlier this month. Denton County authorities released multiple search warrants for Bryant’s car and home, detailing items that they say pointed them to Bryant as Jacqueline Vandagriff’s killer. Here are 10 items worth…

So Dallas will solve its loose dog problem by killing more dogs. Good. I could hope for only more thing. I wish they would film the killing of the dogs every week and put the video online. With that video, I wish the city also would post the names, addresses and…