Denton County Sheriff William Travis Is Losing Endorsements Like Mad

Denton County Sheriff William B. Travis is losing endorsements faster than blood pouring from a bullet wound. A state representative, Denton county officials, mayors and mayors pro tem from several cities and a couple of Denton County constables have withdrawn their support, and the future of the sheriff’s campaign is…

Denton’s Scandal-Prone Sheriff

Denton County Sheriff William B. Travis sits in his office, surrounded partially by confiscated weapons, clinging to a folder of old court documents. Inside are details of a case that has haunted him since the late ’90s and may well ruin his chances for re-election this March. He’s spent weeks…

Ethan Couch Transferred to Adult Court

Ethan Couch, the affluenza-afflicted drunk driving teen who killed four people in a 2013 Tarrant County crash, is finally getting his day in adult court. Couch’s juvenile probation would’ve expired in April, on his 19th birthday. Friday morning — in front of his father, Fred Couch, and the families of…

FBI Visit Continues Grapevine Real Estate Firm’s Downward Spiral

United Development Funding is having a no good, terrible, very bad month. A visit from FBI agents yesterday is the latest trouble for the embattled firm.  During the first week of February, Kyle Bass, who runs Dallas’ Heyman Capital hedge fund, shorted UDF’s Nasdaq stock, basically betting that UDF’s stock…

Another Murder in Tent City

Tent City, the sprawling homeless encampment beneath Interstate 45 just southeast of downtown, has claimed its second victim in a month. Dallas police responded to a stabbing call at Tent City just before 6 p.m. on Tuesday. There, in a patch of dirt near Hickory Street, they found the body…

Ken Paxton Faces Yet Another Misconduct Investigation

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, already facing three felony charges related to illegal lobbying in Collin County, received even more bad news Wednesday when a Texas State Bar disciplinary committee announced that it would allow to move forward a complaint about Paxton’s acts in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme…

Amid K2 Crisis, Dallas Might Regulate Head Shops Like Strip Clubs

The problem with K2 downtown, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said Monday, might be more than the drag on resources it causes for Dallas police and firefighters or the health threat it poses to the synthetic drug’s often homeless users. The drug also could be responsible for an increase in…

Details Emerge in Johnny Manziel Domestic Violence Incident

Late last week, the Dallas Police Department received a report from Fort Worth Police about a sustained domestic assault alleged committed by Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel across DFW on January 29 and 30. Colleen Crowley, Manziel’s ex-girlfriend, had filed a request for a protective order from Manziel in Tarrant…

Dallas Police Chief David Brown Loses a Right-Hand Man

Charles Cato, long thought to be Dallas’ police-chief-in-waiting, is leaving the Dallas Police Department. The long-serving first assistant chief has been named the chief of Mesquite’s police, and will start March 7. During his time with the department, Cato served as the interim Dallas ISD police chief in 2006, was…

Why the Crackdown on K2 Among Downtown’s Homeless Won’t Work

Since the beginning of December, Dallas Fire and Rescue has received more than 200 calls to deal with people who are, apparently, on one of the many substances colloquially known as K2. In media reports, the calls are often said to be addressing overdoses, but the behavior described often also…

Dallas’ West End Rail Stop Is Crime Central Station

Early Saturday afternoon, nine days after he and a friend allegedly carjacked 37-year-old Sarah Hoff in her downtown Dallas parking garage before taking her car and credit card to a Pleasant Grove McDonald’s, DART police found 17-year-old Ira Booker at a downtown train station. According to police, Booker initially tried…

Screw Tickets. Dallas Is Taking Aggressive Panhandlers Straight to Jail.

Darryl Davis is something of a celebrity in downtown Dallas. He’s been roaming the streets for years, hounding passersby for money with an intensity and tenacity that other neighborhood panhandlers can’t or won’t muster. In the past nine months, he’s been ticketed five times for panhandling, according to municipal court…

On the Record with Dallas Chief of Police David Brown

Dallas Police Chief David Brown isn’t afraid of media interviews. Or if he is, he does a great job hiding it. Maybe he sees them as a challenge — he exhibits all the signs of a person who is energized by struggle. Case in point: As the interview goes on, he…

Ethan Couch Back in Texas, Still a Juvenile for Now

Ethan Couch’s kinda strong, kinda strange trip to Mexico is over. After dropping his appeals against deportation earlier this week, the 18-year-old returned to Tarrant County Thursday. He will now face the transfer of his 10-year juvenile probation sentence — handed out after he killed four in a 2013 drunk-driving…

Affluenza-Riddled Teen Ethan Couch Is Coming Home

Ethan Couch is expected to end his long Mexican vacation this week. The 18-year-old killer drunk driver has been south of the border since the beginning of December, following a viral video of Couch playing beer pong being posted to Twitter and the teen’s subsequent missing a probation appointment. His…