U.S. Representative Steve Stockman is not a subtle man. We could go so far as to say he has a flair for the dramatic. He is, after all, the man who brought Ted Nugent as his plus-one to the State of the Union address, and compared the Earth to a…
A week ago Sunday, Justin Mark Stanert made a cameo on TheDirty.com, Nik Richie’s rather lurid crowd-sourced gossip site. By the standards of the site, the allegations against Stanert were tame. No nude photos, no rumors of liaisons with underage transexual prostitutes, just a report that he and his girlfriend…
Last year, nine years after the Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed, the federal government laid out final rules aimed at stamping out sexual abuse in America’s criminal justice system, with specific provisions for juvenile lockups. Dallas County’s Juvenile Department applied for and was recently awarded a federal grant of…
Inside First Baptist of Sunnyvale, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland lay in a flag-draped coffin alongside the ashes of his wife, Cynthia. That was fitting in a sad way, their friends said, because they knew one wouldn’t want to go on without the other. Hundreds of friends, colleagues and…
This week, we’ve given you a little background on the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, and some reasons why two experts familiar with the gang are skeptical that they could be behind the murders of Kaufman County DA Mark McLelland, his wife Cynthia, and ADA Mark Hasse. In short: because while…
Every day, Dallas police respond to a disheartening number of domestic violence calls, too many to note. In 2011, there were 13,000 instances of family violence, most of them assaults. Last year, 26 women were murdered by their partners. Yesterday’s alleged thuggery took police to Great Trinity Forest Boulevard, where…
Nick Morale, a 56-year-old man from Terrell, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of making “terroristic threats” against the life of an unnamed county official. Lieutenant Justin Lewis of the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office told reporters Wednesday that the threat was left on a Crime Stoppers tip line Monday afternoon, warning…
When I spoke to Terry Pelz late yesterday afternoon, he sounded hoarse and exhausted. “I’m just about talked out,” he said. Pelz is a former prison warden at the Darrington Unit who now runs a criminal justice consulting firm in Missouri City, about 20 miles southwest of Houston. He’s been…
Kyle Coplen can pinpoint the exact moment the idea came to him. He was visiting a 93-year-old World War II veteran on January 23 whose home had just been vandalized. Mementos were broken. The walls had been covered with spray paint. The man was distraught, and so was Coplen, who…
It was less than two weeks ago that Dallas Police Chief David Brown appeared at a press conference to say that, despite the department’s initial hopes, they had no idea who raped three women in Lake Highlands over the course of a month. Now, they do. Officers arrested 30-year-old Cesar…
Every law enforcement agency in North Texas has descended on Kaufman County in the past several days following the murder of District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, at their home. The couple was found by a concerned friend around 6:45 p.m. on Saturday night, according to a search…
It’s been two-and-a-half months since Collin County Sheriff Terry Box made headlines (and, some might say, a bit of an ass of himself) by proclaiming that he and his deputies would have no part in enforcing federal gun laws that might “violate our precious constitutional rights.” It’s not a terribly…
Police had only just opened Blarney Stone Way in Forney Monday afternoon when this picture was taken. Satellite trucks were already stacked fender to fender for 100 yards or more, and cameramen were trained on the house ringed with yellow police tape, shooting B roll for the evening newscasts. See…
The murder this weekend of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, two months after assistant DA Mark Hasse was gunned down in broad daylight, has Texas prosecutors on high alert. The Associated Press reports today that district attorneys throughout the state are taking extra precautions as they…
As he walked along the sidewalk of his Far East Dallas apartment complex at 5:15 on Easter morning, a 24-year-old man heard someone call out from behind, asking him to hold up. He turned and saw three Hispanic men, clad in identical white T-shirts, hop out of a black Toyota…
Every single day in Dallas brings a dismaying number of reports of men beating their wives and girlfriends, which is what’s fueling Mayor Mike Rawlings’ crusade against domestic violence. But the message he delivered at his recent City Hall rally apparently hasn’t yet sunk in for everybody. In the early…
News came out yesterday that former Spring Branch ISD high school teacher Kathanna Culp, 28, is accused of having sex with one of her students and of supplying him and his friends with pot and alcohol. This follows last month’s story about a Dallas teacher Jessica Guilbeaux, 31, accused of…
Somehow, Dallas police weren’t convinced that Hendri Boykin was the hopelessly lovestruck 19-year-old he made himself out to be. He had a gold engagement ring and told the officers who visited his apartment Tuesday afternoon that he was “going to ask my girl to marry me,” stammering nervously in the…
DART’s police force may spend more of its time tracking down fare jumpers than a typical law enforcement agency, but they are real, licensed peace officers with all the associated powers. Like carrying firearms. A DART police trainee was learning how to use his this morning at DART PD’s Corinth…
Stealing Apple products in bulk is always a dicey proposition. Short of brazen daylight raids on the Knox Street Apple Store, which actually seem to be fairly effective, products made by the world’s leading producer of consumer electronics tend to be closely monitored by retailers. But here’s a tip for…
Barrett Brown’s current stint in federal prison can be linked, in a way, to his mother. It was the FBI’s treatment of her that prompted the YouTube rant and Twitter tirade in which Brown threatened a special agent and his family, which in turn led to the heavily armed raid…
On Saturday afternoon, a panhandler, whom police later identified as 59-year-old Isaiah Caldwell, was working the traffic coming off Interstate 35 on Marsalis Avenue in East Oak Cliff when another panhandler, a 42-year-old woman, arrived at the same spot. She quickly offered a suggestion: Rather than compete with one another…
