A former Dallas Police Department officer was found not guilty Thursday of charges related to a 2017 shooting in which he killed a woman at an Old East Dallas apartment complex. After deliberating for two days, a Dallas County jury acquitted Christopher Hess, 42, of a single count of aggravated…
Last week an attorney for indicted Dallas housing developer Ruel Hamilton filed a federal court document (see below) describing “outrageous government conduct” by FBI agents going after Hamilton. Outrageous government conduct is a legal term. But let me tell you what’s outrageous to me as a non-lawyer. I’ve been out…
The document by which Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall announced the outcomes of a two-year crooked-cop investigation of the vice squad reads like it was written by Joseph Heller, the guy who wrote Catch-22. Only Heller was funny. The memo made public a week ago makes Hall look far worse…
When a centuries-old bronze statue now on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art was stolen from a Hindu temple in Nepal 36 years ago, it became one of hundreds of ancient cultural artifacts that have been illegally removed from the country over the last six decades. Since the 1950s,…
The Dallas Police Department’s multi-year investigation into its Vice Unit is over, the department announced Wednesday. Twenty-two officers have been disciplined, according to DPD Chief Renee Hall, and face punishments ranging from a written reprimand to suspension. The department did not fire any officers, and no officers were charged with…
Newly released documents paint a disturbing picture of the incident that lead to the arrest of a Dallas County Sheriff’s Department deputy Thursday evening. Deputy Austin Palmer is charged with assault causing bodily injury and official oppression, both Class A misdemeanors, after he allegedly tased and threatened a handcuffed man…
Study after study blames violence and social dysfunction in poor, racially segregated neighborhoods on a roster of causes, from extreme poverty to environmental pollution to segregation itself, but the elected leadership of old South Dallas has insisted for 15 years that their crime problems are caused by a car wash…
This year, as in past years, the Dallas Police Department asked revelers to refrain from celebratory gunfire because it’s illegal, dangerous and punishable by a fine and jail time. But, between 10:00 p.m. December 31, 2019 and 2:00 a.m. January 1, 2020, DPD recorded 933 calls reporting random gunfire – 16 more than during the same period last New Year’s Eve.
Dallas County Sheriff’s Deputy Latorrez Jones gently smooths his dog Hawk’s ears and chest fur. Hawk’s jaws lock firmly on the thick burlap arm guard wrapped around Deputy Kevin Ross’ arm. As Ross pulls back, simulating an attempt to escape, Hawk’s grip holds steady. He’s been trained to bite once,…
It was quite a year for the Dallas police. The city recorded 200 murders, the most in over a decade. The governor sent state troopers to South Dallas amid complaints that the city’s police department is understaffed, drawing accusations of overpolicing from local community leaders. Not to mention the conviction…
Aaron Dean, the former Fort Worth police officer who shot and killed a black woman in her home, was indicted by a grand jury for murder on Friday morning. Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew in October when a neighbor called a non-emergency police hotline…
I learned this week in a piece by Shawn Shinneman at D Magazine that the city of Dallas is paying lawyers to sue the Texas Attorney General in district court in Austin to get out of turning over Mayor Eric Johnson’s daily calendar. Let me just run that by you…
When I read an op-ed piece in The New York Times last week by William H. Webster (the only person ever to have been director of both the FBI and then the CIA), I wanted to believe every word, because essentially he was calling President Donald Trump an idiot, which…
For over a decade, Genaro Garcia Luna was in charge of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s violent crackdown on the country’s cartels. But instead of hunting drug traffickers, Luna allowed them to operate with impunity in exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Tuesday. Luna was arrested…
So the mayor has changed his mind. After ducking crime and a soaring murder rate in his election campaign last summer, after handing it all off to a study commission when he got elected, now all of a sudden Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson sees a murder crisis in the city…
Nineteen months after former Cowboy Terrance Williams’ head-over-handlebars performance, another of Jerry Jones’ finest has taken a star turn in a Frisco Police Department video. This time around, it’s injured defensive tackle Antwaun Woods, busted by FPD for pot possession, tampering with evidence and possession of drug paraphernalia. The story,…
This weekend, the Dallas County will hold its third Expunction Expo and ceremony in which Dallas Criminal County District Attorney John Creuzot grants eligible individuals the removal of qualifying criminal offenses from their records.
A Dallas County grand jury has indicted community activist Dominique Alexander on family violence charges, according to court records. Alexander was arrested in April, following accusations that he injured his longtime domestic partner, Keyaira Saunders. Saunders called Dallas activist and pastor Jeff Hood after the alleged assault. The pair then…
While the internet was worried about a cop who looked like he might have been taking a bottle of tequila from a liquor store in the aftermath of Dallas’ October tornado — a story that turned out not to be true — two Dallas County Sheriff’s Office deputies really were…
The Bryan Pergola at the top of the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza has always struck me as an ugly monument to everything depressing in the history of Dallas. Built in the “early commercial style” of the early 20th century, it looks like a public restroom. It’s named for a…
A Dallas County grand jury indicted Austin Shuffield, the bartender accused of a brutal, caught-on-video assault in Deep Ellum this spring, on four counts Thursday, according to county records. Shuffield, 31, faces one count each of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, obstruction or retaliation, assault causing bodily harm and unlawfully…
Dallas saw a massive spike in hate crimes in 2018, according to FBI data released Tuesday. The Dallas Police Department reported 31 such incidents to the FBI last year, more than double the previous year’s number. Angela Hale, acting CEO of Equality Texas, attributed the rise to hateful rhetoric by…
