Fifteen years ago, the Pittsburgh Penguins had Jean-Claude Van Damme to keep them safe. In a few months, Cowboys Stadium and the rest of North Texas will have THOR, a one-stop shop for fighting crime and responding to any emergency that could arise during the Super Bowl. Built by Intrado,…
Local law enforcement agencies have scheduled two press conferences this week — one at the Jack Evans this morning, another at the Kroger on Mockingbird at Greenville Wednesday. Long story short: DPD wants to get the word out two programs coming down your chimney at this, the most wonderful time…
We can look at CQ Press’s just-released City Crime Rankings 2010-2011 two ways: from safest to most dangerous or vice-versa. But either way — based upon the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports that include “the violent crimes of murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault and the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft,…
Earlier this afternoon, Dallas Police Department spokesman Warren Mitchell sent word: Shortly before 7 this morning, security guards at Fountain Place downtown called 911 after espying what considered “a threatening note” affixed to a scooter in the underground parking garage. Mitchell’s narrative suggests that at least one person at Fountain…
On July 23 — the second day of Brian Potashnik’s testimony in the Dallas City Hall corruption trial — prosecutor Marcus Busch played a series of damning wiretaps for jurors. He paused them numerous times, read them into the record and then asked Potashink to confirm if what he’d read…
Dallas has long been one of the most woefully ill-equipped large cities in the United States when it comes to dealing with sexual assault. Until recently, only Parkland Hospital was authorized to conduct rape kits for submission into evidence, and there was no free-standing rape crisis center that victims could…
A sobering stat: The National Human Trafficking Resource Center receives more calls from Texas than any other state, and 15 percent of those calls come from Dallas-Fort Worth, according to Sara Taylor with DFWTraffick, a local organization dedicated to combating sexual exploitation in the area. I heard from Taylor after…
I cannot count the number of stories Observer editor Mark Donald and I have written about Ronald “Buffalo” Chambers, who, on April 10, 1975, kidnapped 22-year-old Texas Tech student Mike McMahan and 20-year-old Deia Sutton, drove them to the Trinity River bottoms and shot both in the head. McMahan died…
Back in ’08, federal agents snatched up Melvis “Ty” Denman and several others charged with being part of a ginormous pot-selling operation; Denman pleaded guilty a year later and is presently serving a lengthy stint in the pokey. But the U.S. Marshals Service still had in its possession one of…
Danny Cain does not and never has worked for the Dallas Independent School District. He does not and never has worked for Hewlett Packard. And yet yesterday, two federal agencies announced that he was awarded a chunk of HP’s $16.25-million settlement over wrongdoing at the district having to do with…
Back in June 2009, you may recall, the Dallas Independent School District and the U.S. Department of Justice settled up over the misuse of funds provided to the district for the feds’ E-Rate program, which was created in 1996 to give “affordable access to telecommunications services for all eligible schools…
Here’s yet another good Friend of Unfair Park-suggested video — this one, a just-posted piece from the fine folks at You+Dallas in which several videographers (including newfound favorite Jun Kang) hop in the passenger seat of Dallas Police officer Jason Groom’s squad car for a downtown ride-along. Groom’s a good…
In his two decades in law enforcement, Michael Meissner’s made the rounds of small Texas towns. From Crandall to Caddo Mills, he’s worked in 18 police departments in the last 20 years, according to a January story in The Dallas Morning News.As detailed there, and in a suit filed October…
About an hour ago, Deputy Chief Craig Miller, commander of the Crimes Against Persons Division, held a press conference at Dallas PD HQ to discuss yesterday’s police shooting of 32-year-old Tony Menchaca. At the press conference, Miller outlined the day’s events and explained that Menchaca had just been released from…
At 8:10 this morning, Dallas Police spokesman Lt. C.L. Williams sent to media this brief message: “There is a police involved shooting at 3100 W. Davis in Oak Cliff.” A short time later, he sent word: He was there; so too assorted TV news vans, though so far on WFAA-Channel…
Barbara Jean Altemeier says she was arrested in Dallas in 2006. She says the basis for her arrest was a “falsely made up complaint” out of Fruitport, Michigan — an embezzlement charge she says was eventually dismissed. She says she was kept in Dallas County lock-up for 78 days, and…
Why, lookie there — former Dallas Cowboys head coach Barry Switzer’s the face of Federal Cash Advance. Makes sense: The payday lender’s Oklahoma-based. But, see, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott doesn’t take to kindly to the way it runs its bidness down here. Says the AG in a lawsuit filed…
And so the long, sordid story of high-tone Realtors Eleanor and Nicky Sheets comes to an end. Four months after Eleanor pleaded guilty to four counts of tax evasion, she was sentenced this morning by U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul D. Stickney to a year in prison, to be followed by…
Back in August Sam told you all about Tyrone Weatherall, a leader of the West Side Gator Boys — and an exotic animal collector — who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute cocaine. Tyrone’s due to be sentenced on November 19. But…
Admit it: You forgot all about Michael Laurence Browne, the gentleman who led police on a slow ride through Dallas — right by Unfair Park HQ, no less — before landing on the Love Field Airport runway a couple of months back. Browne, charged by Dallas Police with a laundry…
This is just in from the Dallas Police Department concerning a home invasion that occurred last night, not far from W.W. Samuell High School. Long story short: Even if you think the bad guys, who’d committed their crime dressed in police uniforms, have returned to the scene of the violent…
Victims of unsolved sexual assaults committed prior to 1996 will now need to contact the Dallas Police Department should they wish for DNA analysis to be conducted in hopes of identifying their attackers. In a press release sent out today in advance of an afternoon press conference with Deputy Chief…
