Adrelos Sanchez Waters drew suspicion as soon as the woman at the baggage check-in counter in McAllen, Texas, all of seven miles from the Mexican border, checked in his two pieces of luggage. They were heavy, much too heavy to just contain clothes and toiletries. She contacted McAllen police, who…
Last Sunday, a man was out checking his hog traps in a pasture in rural Erath County, some 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, when he stumbled upon 43-year-old Ricky Stephens. Stephens was alive, but barely. He had been severely beaten and was covered in severe burns, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune…
As Texas’ prison population has declined in recent years and criminal justice advocates and fiscal conservatives alike have questioned the wisdom of locking people up for minor, non-violent drug and property offenses, Dawson State Jail has become a prime target for closure. Last month, a couple dozen sentencing reform and…
The Texas Department of Public Safety got itself in a bit of a public relations mess last October when state troopers in a helicopter tracking a red pickup suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants opened fire, killing two Guatemalans and raising inevitable questions about the appropriateness of a law enforcement agency…
Last summer brought us the story of Anson Chi, a Plano man who’s accused of trying to detonate a bomb next to a gas main on West Park Road. The bomb did go off, perhaps earlier than Chi was hoping; police believe it detonated while he was “tampering” with the…
An appeals committee at City Hall on Thursday upheld Dallas Police Chief David Brown’s decision to fire a 911 call-taker over her mishandling of a call last August. Angelia Herrod-Graham answered the 911 call from the mother of Deanna Cook, saying she hadn’t seen her daughter in two days and…
A week before Christmas, Cedric Dewayne Caddell, Jr. and a friend went to the Denny’s at Stemmons Freeway and Walnut Hill. Their goal: to score some weed. To that end, Caddell had gotten in touch with a dealer, later identified by police as 20-year-old Dangelo Dewayne Wilhite, who showed up…
It wasn’t a run on baked souffle that kept the phones ringing off the hook at two Panera Bread locations in Dallas yesterday morning. It was one guy — an especially creepy one — who apparently enjoys harassing female crew members at fast-casual bakery/cafe chains. According to two police reports,…
On November 14, the New York Post broke news that FC Dallas CEO Doug Quinn had been arrested for assaulting his wife in a luxury hotel room in New York City, where he was celebrating his 50th birthday with his wife, Elizabeth. As the Post described it, a “hulking” 6’5″,…
On January 16, President Obama, flanked by family members of some of the first graders killed at Sandy Hook Elementary the month before, laid out his plans to curb gun violence. These included 23 executive orders that tweak the system for background checks, lift a ban on federal funding for…
Deyfon Pipkins has spent a lot of time in the Dallas County jail over the past decade, having been arrested a half dozen times on theft charges since 2003. Police say he was back at it again at 4:15 p..m. on Monday afternoon, when he targeted a house in the…
In yet another piece of bad publicity for SMU’s fraternities, the university’s police department reports there was a “hazing incident” at Sigma Alpha Epsilon over the weekend. Two reports were filed from the Sigma Alpha house on February 17, one around 9:30 a.m. for the hazing, and another at 10…
Abe Spear came to Dallas on September 20 to back Nashville musician Josh Thompson at a gig at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill. The 30-year-old Spear is a veteran banjo player who’d tasted modest success as part of the bluegrass group King Wilkie before joining up with…
Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration released a list of all the city and state entities who have applied for a license to fly unmanned aerial drones. That list was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), an organization that champions…
At 8:15 last night, Uthit Worawut and a friend were walking toward DART’s Hatcher Station in South Dallas when police say Traymill Cherry walked up to them pointing a .40-caliber handgun. Worawut, whose is listed on police reports as a resident of The Bridge, was carrying $230 cash, but Cherry…
A hearing to determine if Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins committed prosecutorial misconduct was postponed today after Watkins refused to appear in court. The allegations were brought by attorneys of Al Hill III, who was charged with mortgage fraud by the DA’s office shortly before a legal dispute with…
In the early hours of November 16, 2012, Leroy Dukes was making his nightly rounds as part of the nighttime custodial crew cleaning American First National Bank in Arlington when he glanced inside one of the trash cans behind the teller counter. There, according to a criminal complaint filed recently…
Last October, in a particularly brutal and senseless act of violence, Derrick Birdow crashed a Mercury Grand Marquis through the side of Greater Sweethome Missionary Baptist Church and proceeded to fatally bludgeon its 53-year-old pastor, the Reverend Danny Kirk Sr., with an electric guitar. Police weren’t sure why Birdow murdered…
Police are on the lookout for a 6’2″, 300-pound Hispanic man who conducted a brief but successful raid on the Victoria’s Secret at Mockingbird Station. According to a police report, the man walked into the store through the front door, grabbed 20 sets of pajamas — a $700 value –…
In 2007, Dallas County came to the realization that throwing hookers in jail, as was the standard practice, was an expensive and not-very-effective way of addressing prostitution. So police, courts, and health providers teamed up to develop the Prostitution Diversion Initiative, a program aimed at treating women rather than punishing…
Last week a jury found 68-year-old Jackie Don Burke guilty of one count of unlicensed sale of firearms. According to Burke’s own records he sold 135 firearms in 14 months, because if you’re gonna do it then why not do it big? One of those firearms was a pistol the…
From SMU’s crime logs, we bring you a brief, somewhat disturbing, deeply weird police report: at 8:18 last night, campus police reported that a student was “was assaulted and held against his will” at the university’s Sigma Phi Epsilon house. The case is being classified as “Aggravated Assault/Aggravated Kidnapping/Personal Hazing…
