Crime & Police

When she was 15, Courtney Underwood was raped by her pastor. She’d grown up in Highland Park, attended a religious private school and had no idea how to talk about what had happened to her or ask for help. It took her two years to discuss the rape at all,…

The seemingly sad story of Dallas firefighter Jesus Ventura is getting even sadder, at least if you believe the accusations just leveled by the U.S. Attorney’s office. Back in March, Ventura, 37, was arrested after he was accused of bringing a semi-automatic pistol into Fire Station #45, near West Commerce…

On paper, anyway, Ryan Walker Grant, the owner of Flashdancer Cabaret in Arlington, agreed to shut down the troubled strip club in January, after the city and state both leaned on Grant to close shop for a year. But as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported yesterday, and as the FBI…

Curled into a C-shape on a metal exam table at City Vet in Oak Lawn today, the tired puppy rested soundly, his brown and white coat patched with scabs from the burns he suffered at the hands of people who have not yet been arrested. For the moment, he was…

It was back in January when we first introduced you to young Anthony Blue, a 19-year-old man trying to make a go in the bank-robbing field. He was off to a decent start, actually: In June of last year, he had walked into a Garland bank and slipped the teller…

The City Council’s getting briefed this week on “community policing,” the Dallas Police Department’s ongoing effort to get residents involved in preventing crime in their neighborhoods. This last came up in December, when Chief David Brown and McGruff the Crime Dog came to visit council members and enthusiastically high-five Scott…

Update, April 1: If you’ve read this morning’s paper, you know this story is even more disturbing than initially thought. Update after the original: Original item, Saturday, March 31: It was only yesterday that Edward Ramsey called Dallas police, concerned about the whereabouts of his 11-year-old grandson, Johnathan Ramsey. But…

The FBI and Friends are at a Mutual of Omaha bank branch this afternoon, after an armed gunman made off with a plastic bag full of loot. The industrious folks at DFW Police Scanner report: An unknown suspect just robbed the Mutual of Omaha Bank at gunpoint. Susp is a…

Before this morning, we had never heard of Reynolds Protection, a Dallas purveyor of bodyguards, or its owner, Chad Reynolds, who judging from his bio photo is roughly the size of a refrigerator. A very bald, imposing refrigerator. But this morning Reynolds Protection sent around a press release announcing the…

I’ve worked at newspapers in six cities now, and I can say this about the Dallas Police Department: Its media alerts are by far the most candid I’ve ever read. Today’s is a great example: Today at 1:55 pm officers responded to a suspicious person call at 8401 Skillman. There…

Less than a month since an unarmed, black teen — with no criminal record and every right to be in a gated Florida neighborhood — was shot to death by some repeat 911 dialer and crime watch volunteer named George Zimmerman, we’ve been collectively stunned by the fact that the…

On Tuesday night, state Senator Wendy Davis’ staff announced that someone had set a small fire outside the door of her Fort Worth office using bottles filled with lighter fluid. The senator wasn’t there at the time, and no one else was hurt during the incident, which badly scorched the…

Our friend Daniel Rodrigue, once a writer here and now a journalism teacher at DCCCD’s Brookhaven College, sent word this morning that one of his students, Derek Madrigal, was the victim of a vicious beating on the beaches of South Padre Island over spring break. The story is popping up…

Late last night, police say, four strangers broke into the home of a southern Dallas man looking to rob the house. They wound up killing him — in front of the man’s daughter. Jesse Barragan, 54, was in his bedroom when the men — three of them black, one Latino…

Back in February, when the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick’s Day Parade on was still on alleged life support, one of the rising costs cited by cash-strapped organizers was the police presence. A growing parade meant a growing need for cops on the streets, and that meant a parade budget that…

Those lucky Dallasites who tuned in to KDFW Fox 4’s 9 p.m. news last night got a little something extra, but it wasn’t the exclusive — and entirely banal — footage of Dallas police arresting a Dallas firefighter at his home. It was the tap-dance routine that followed (and which…

Surprise! And by that we mean in a development that’s no surprise at all to anyone, DPD just sent out a news release announcing that they’ll be conducting another No Refusal DWI Initiative this weekend: This initiative will begin at 6:00 P.M., Friday, March 16, 2012 and will end at…

Around 2 a.m. yesterday morning, two men were walking near the corner of Audelia Road and Forest Lane in northeast Dallas when, according to police, a dark four-door car, adorned with tinted windows and 24-inch rims, approached them slowly. There were five or six black men inside, all thought to…

Update: Cannon has resigned. More after the original story. Original item: The folks from the Dallas Police vice squad had an interesting Thursday, going undercover at the apparently lovably bizarre King Spa and Sauna. And they netted themselves an interesting fish: Scott Cannon III, a longtime Duncanville city councilman with…

At around 9:05 Wednesday night, Dallas police say, Luis Escalante, 23, and Carlos Cipriano, 37, approached a customer in front of Smoke For Less in the 2900 block of Esters Boulevard in northwest Irving, brandished a weapon — possibly a pellet gun — and made off with a vehicle equipped…

It was a hold-up. If any of Tim Moore’s 16 coworkers at Oshman’s Sporting Goods in Irving made a wrong move on Christmas Eve of 2000, someone would die. The group of men posing as ADT security personnel ordered employees to line up with their hands on the counter. They…