"The truth came out today. I can’t tell you how happy I am. I can’t tell you how ready I am for this fresh start and just to get back to work." — Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk in January 2016, after her attorneys successfully defeated a lawsuit that would've seen her removed from office. Cindy Stormer, a former employee of Hawk's, claimed that the district attorney's paranoid and erratic behavior rendered her incapable of doing the job. By May, Hawk would take her second extended absence from her post to deal with mental illness. She resigned in September.
"The truth is pornography is not just a lie, it’s lethal." — Dallas City Council member Adam McGough in February, just before he and seven of his council colleagues voted to ban the Exxxotica porn convention from the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center, kicking off an expensive legal battle that remains unsettled.
"I'm tired of you. You fucked up my house, nigga. You were fucking my wife." — Former Dallas City Council member Dwaine Caraway to his opponent in the Democratic primary for county commissioner, John Wiley Price. The bizarre accusation arose during a radio station debate. Price won the March 1 primary handily.
"Odor is now 2-5 today." — Rangers announcer Steve Busby, adding a hit to second baseman Rougned Odor's stat line in May, after Odor landed a clean right cross to Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista's jaw during a brawl.
"So I need more sleep, I need to grieve, I need to do my job and I need to lead officers of whom I am extremely proud to serve along-side. These are truly men and women who are guardians of the city of Dallas. We can improve how we deal with conflict and deescalate tense situations and we can also support a police department with a history of reaching out and inclusivity with its citizenry." — Dallas Police Major Max Geron, writing two days after the July 7 ambush downtown.ROUGNED ODOR HAYMAKER DOT GIF
— Landon Haaf (@LandonHaaf) May 15, 2016
MORE: https://t.co/SnIPA2vjz9 pic.twitter.com/x6iWztZhlA
"The evidence is pretty clear that enforcement only and arresting your way out of crime has not worked in this country. Incarcerating a lot of people has not worked in this country as far as keeping us safer. Community policing has made us a lot safer." — Outgoing Dallas Police Chief David Brown at his retirement press conference, reflecting on what he's learned during his tenure.
"Disagreement often turns into dehumanization. Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples and judge ourselves by our best intentions." — Dallas resident and former president George W. Bush, reflecting at the public memorial service for the July 7 victims.
"I'll admit that was said, but sometimes people say things at the spur of the moment and later come to regret it. And that's basically what happened on this." — Former Dallas County election judge Randy Smith, begging the commissioner's court to let him keep his job despite his multiple Facebook posts about "niggers" and how there are "some good blacks." He lost the job.
"Football is a meritocracy. You aren't handed anything. You earn everything, every single day, over and over again — you have to prove it. That's the way of the NFL. That's the way football works. A great example of this is Dak Prescott and what he's done. He's earned the right to be our quarterback. As hard as that is for me to say, he has earned that right." — Tony Romo, conceding his role on the Cowboys at a November press conference.
"The focus of our bill has nothing to do with issues of sexuality and gender, and everything to do with how parents are treated by the government entities they fund." — Tarrant County state Senator Konni Burton, explaining how her proposed bill for the 2017 legislative session that would require teachers to disclose any "general knowledge" they have about students to those students' parents doesn't have anything to do with potential outting LGBTQ kids. Burton's bill, by her own admission, was drafted in response to Fort Worth ISD guidelines that would've allowed the districts transgender students to use the bathroom in which they felt the most safe.
"Maybe I'll wear a fetus necklace next time." — Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, after receiving complaints on social media about wearing a necklace made out of bullets on CNN. (Note: Pierson wore the necklace on December 30, 2015, but that was too late to make last year's list and we didn't want to pass it up.)
