It seems that Jay Torres, the DFW-based La Estrella freelancer killed in the backyard of a Garland home last month, was not killed because he was a journalist. Garland Police announced Tuesday afternoon that they are looking for Anibal Edilfredo Chirino Mejia, 23, of Garland. Mejia, police believe, killed Torres over a…
Parked in a 2005 gold Impala, Colton Crews waited in a busy Target parking lot, an AK-47 in the trunk of his car. He’d parked away from other cars, but not too far away, when he arrived just a few minutes earlier on this Saturday afternoon in Carrollton. The 24-year-old…
Last June 17, when organized anti-Trump protesters showed up outside a Donald Trump rally in Dallas, Breitbart, the conservative online news service, described some of the protesters with the headline: “Dallas Anti-Trump Protesters Are Entitled, Vile and Stupid.” Well, at least Micah Johnson, the shooter who killed five Dallas cops three…
Dallas Cowboys superstar running back in waiting Ezekiel Elliott faces accusations that he beat up his ex-girlfriend. In two reports filed with the Columbus, Ohio police department early Friday morning, Tiffany Thompson says that she was attacked by Elliott first last week, when he hit her and left bruises on…
Next Generation Action Network, the primary organization behind the July 7 protest against police brutality that preceded five Dallas police officers being shot to death by Micah Xavier Johnson, has, for the second time since the shooting, postponed the march scheduled for this week. The head of the network, Dominique…
Micah Xavier Johnson started his rampage by pulling his SUV onto Lamar Street. The street was empty, cleared out in anticipation of the police protest march that was just concluding downtown. He parked his vehicle sideways in the street, grill facing El Centro’s east entrance. There, El Centro College Police…
Dominique Alexander, the head of Next Generation Action Network and one of the people behind the protest that preceded July 7 police shootings in downtown Dallas, is not wasting much time. The group’s next protest, he announced Monday afternoon, is going to go on Thursday night, two weeks to the…
Dallas’ police department has received intense scrutiny since Micah Johnson ambushed Dallas police following a march against police brutality on July 7. Our city has a complex history with law enforcement that the Observer has extensively covered. Here’s a quick list of reading material that can help explain the dynamic between the…
As Dallas was hit with rain Friday morning, the Dallas Public Library moved to save the memorial that sprung up at police headquarters in the immediate aftermath of July 7’s police ambush. Everything hand-written or non-perishable from the memorial will be saved. Thousands of items left by people from around…
It’s official: Mack Rhoades is Baylor University’s new athletic director. The former athletic director at the University of Houston and, most recently, the University of Missouri, Rhoades has to rebuild a program reeling with accusations of sexual assaults by players. The task he faces is hard to underestimate, and…
Between 1,500 and 2,000 people gather in front of City Hall to light candles, offer prayers and listen to testimonials to the five Dallas police officers murdered by a gunman last Thursday after a Black Lives Matter march in downtown Dallas. The crowd is about 80 percent white. Everyone is here to express…
Dallas Police Chief David Brown has been talking a lot over the last few days about community policing, a combination of strategies designed to build trust between the police and the people whose lives they patrol. What he doesn’t say in public is something that I know he knows. I…
Downtown Dallas is known for tragic landmarks. Now it has one more. On Thursday night, a group of protesters gathered by the Dallas County Courthouse, itself a scene of community tragedy, although one not as well known as Dealey Plaza and other places related to the Kennedy assassination. Here, in…
The wail is the same. It doesn’t matter which side the wail comes from. Wail of loss. Wail of pain. It’s all the same wail. We don’t have cell phone video of the moments in Dallas when wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers, sisters, lovers, dear…
In every fight, whether a gun battle or a boxing match, there’s something called initiative. It’s not easy to describe, but it exists. Loosely put, it means one side is reacting to the other and therefore can predict their opponent’s moves. Those who have the initiative, win. Those who…
Dallas Police Chief David Brown today told CNN his rationale when approving the use of a robot to deliver an explosive to kill police shooter Micah Johnson during Thursday’s rampage at a protest march. He says negotiations failed and that trying to get a sniper to shoot him would expose…
Major Max Geron is a 24-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department. He’s served as the voice of the department, leading the media relations unit, and is now assigned to the crimes against persons unit. Thursday night, as Micah Xavier Johnson began shooting, Geron was sitting down to dinner. He…
People have been paying their respects with flowers, letters and signs, affixed to DPD cruisers parked in the plaza just outside the entrance to Jack Evans Police Headquarters. Lunchtime Saturday, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and his wife Micki stopped to pay their respects at the memorial and to attempt to…
In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick criticized peaceful Dallas protesters for seeking police protection as gunfire erupted Thursday evening. Patrick, no stranger to inflammatory comments, blamed Black Lives Matter activists for the shooting of 12 Dallas officers — five of whom died — and…
On Friday, police searched the home of police shooter Micah Johnson, gleaning details about the man who targeted them in a rampage Thursday night. Detectives found “bomb making materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition, and a personal journal of combat tactics,” according to the Dallas Police Department. Johnson, 25, had no…
Micah Xavier Johnson, the man Dallas police say killed five officers in an ambush attack at a demonstration against police violence Thursday night, told officers he was not affiliated with any group or organization but was targeting white people and white police officers because he was upset about police shootings…
Sherie Williams, 46, was visiting from her home in Minneapolis when she learned that her sister, Shetamia Taylor, 38, of Garland, had been shot in the leg during Thursday night’s ambush massacre of police in downtown Dallas. Williams says Taylor and her three sons had been just about to return…
