From time to time, when police have a particularly busy weekend, we like to compile some of the more interesting happenings into a quick crime digest. We think of it as a public service.
How else would readers know not to visit the Stults Elementary playground at 1 a.m., or that those DVDs peddled by the mobile ice cream vendor are bootlegs, or that going to Dave & Busters is just a generally bad idea?
Off we go:
8:50 p.m., Saturday: A 19-year-old Garland man and a friend were leaving Dave & Busters when a gold Toyota Corolla passed by in the parking lot. As the car turned onto the Central Expressway service road, a man in the front passenger seat pulled out a handgun and fired three times, striking the Garland teenager once in the leg.
He didn't seem terribly concerned. He declined to be taken to the hospital and told police he did not have a phone number and did not want to press charges.
1 a.m., Sunday: It was his second time the 38-year-old Dallas man had arranged to meet the person after midnight at the playground of Stults Elementary in Northeast Dallas. The first time apparently went well. The second time, not so much.
As he and the other person (the police report doesn't list his/her sex) talked, a woman tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned, the person he'd been talking with punched and kicked him multiple times in the left eye and mouth. When the beatdown stopped, our victim had a black eye and was missing a Coach wallet, $80 cash and five teeth.
3 a.m., Sunday: A 21-year-old gentleman was walking to his car after a long night at the Dallas Live Club, just off Stemmons Freeway and Commonwealth, when he felt a pistol on the back of his head. Behind him was a man dressed in a security uniform who made him lay on the ground and pull his shirt over his head so he couldn't see. The robber than handcuffed him and stole his phone, watch, and the $100 that was in his wallet.
The 21-year-old quickly determined the cuffs weren't real, and that the robber probably wasn't a real security guard, when he was able to break them apart. But by then it was too late. By the time he got his hands free and could pull his shirt down, the robber was gone.
3:40 a.m., Sunday: Joshua Caleb Sutherland wasn't technically supposed to be drinking during his visit to Dallas Cabaret. He's 19 but, according to police, had a fake ID and had clearly had plenty by the time two Dallas police officers showed up.
The cops had been driving past when they were flagged down by a strip club employee who was making sure Sutherland didn't leave the parking lot. He'd just been caught sneaking out of the club with a clear plastic tip jar containing $250 that he'd snatched from behind the bar, police say. The whole thing was caught on video.
Sutherland was arrested for theft and possession of a fake ID.
7:30 a.m. Sunday: Two women went to check on an acquaintance in southern Dallas only to find that her eight children, ages 3-12, were at home alone. They took the kids to Dallas Fire Station 33 in Oak Cliff, where firefighters waited with them until police arrived and took the kids off in three squad cars.
"While we can only hope the circumstances that caused the children to be left alone are soon addressed, we are thankful that there were good Samaritans willing to do what they felt was in the best interest of the children," Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans said in a statement.
The children are in the custody of Texas Family & Protective Services while authorities investigate.
5:30 p.m. Sunday: Police first stopped the man because he was selling ice cream from his bike-mounted ice cream cart and wasn't wearing a helmet. But as they were writing him a ticket, they noticed that he also had a large quantity of counterfeit DVDs. Since they hadn't actually seen the man selling the DVDs, they simply seized them and called the Motion Picture Association of America, which promised to investigate.
