Dafe Kelly Sokoh wasn’t technically supposed to be patrolling the Burger King parking lot. El Rancho Supermarket in Oak Cliff hired him as a security guard to keep an eye on things there, but, when he spotted 26-year-old Roy Castillo leaving the grocery store at what he considered to be…
U.S. Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for five days when, on July 2, 2012, he accompanied them on a routine, Afghan-led patrol in Kandahar Province. Not long after they left the base, the soldiers were approached by three men on motorcycles. Lorance ordered his…
By the time firefighters showed up at the Newport Landing Apartments in Far Northeast Dallas on Tuesday, Lesley Williams’ had already escaped from her burning unit, running outside and calling for help until a neighbor was able to douse the flames that still covered her body. Her hands, back and…
In the past several weeks, Republicans have increased their steady barrage against the Affordable Care Act, but conservatives aren’t the only ones putting out propaganda. The liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund published a report on Thursday highlighting the benefits of Obamacare, particularly for poor people. The report, like…
The Internet tells us that Rita McShannon wears many hats. She’s a small business owner, a real estate agent, an Oath Keeper, and a special investigator with Texas Child Protective Services. She’s also, we learned yesterday, an unapologetic racist. Credit the Texas Observer’s Forrest Wilder for catching that last one…
Since its anchor stores began moving out in the late 1990s, followed by all but a couple of other tenants, the empty storefronts and weed-sprouted parking lots of Six Flags Mall have become little more than a haunt for camera-wielding, dead-mall fetishists. It’s not completely dead — a Dillard’s outlet…
In 1991, Woodrow Wilson High School installed a new floor in the main hallway. At the center, they put a tile mosaic of a stylized wildcat head based on a design that had been used around the school for a decade. Twenty-one years later, Principal Kyle Rains Richardson received a…
We’ll probably never know why a recently acquitted George Zimmerman was speeding through North Texas on Sunday afternoon with a gun in his glove compartment, not that it matters much. He was the subject of a run-of-the-mill traffic stop. That it happened in Forney and there was a gun involved…
Senator Ted Cruz wasn’t joking when he threatened last week to shut down the government if the Affordable Care Act, passed by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, moves forward. Now, buoyed by his victory in an early presidential straw poll in Iowa, he’s doubling down on his…
You’re George Zimmerman. It’s been two weeks since you were acquitted of killing an unarmed teenager in one of the most controversial, racially charged trials in a generation. Thousands, if not millions of people want you dead. What’s a man to do? Buying a gun is probably a good idea…
The Facebook photo shows 51-year-old Dallasite Bobby Ray Carter Jr. grinning as he stands beside his son and a handful of friends chest deep in the crystal clear water. Behind him, the sandy beach, lush foliage and sheer cliff face suggest a tropical paradise. The picture was taken outside the…
There are still things you can’t do on a Texas in Sunday. Buy liquor, for example. Baseball, however, is perfectly fine. That wasn’t always the case. On this day in 1905, the entire Dallas and Fort Worth professional ball teams were arrested for playing a couple of games at what…
It should have been apparent to Ronald Dale Ackers that his ex-girlfriend wants nothing to do with him. Even if she never used those exact words, the mere fact that she left him behind in Bedford, Texas while she established permanent residence in Jonesborough, Tennessee should have sent the message…
Taylor Hooton had just turned 17 when, in the summer of 2003, he hanged himself. It was a shock to everyone: his family, his friends, his teammates on the Plano West baseball team, where he expected to be a starting pitcher the next season. There was at least circumstantial evidence…
CW 33 reporter Doug Magditch is in a pickle. He has to go live on Nightcap TV in, like, four hours, and he still needs a source for a very important story. He gives more details in a Reddit post titled “Seeking an ‘internet troll.'” I’m Doug Magditch, a reporter…
When people in Far North Dallas set out to fight a Walmart Supercenter planned for the corner of Coit and Arapaho roads, you could tell City Councilwoman Sandy Greyson wanted to help. There just wasn’t anything she could do, save for meet with company representatives and convince them to conduct…
Mark Bumpers was standing behind his Red Bird home late on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 26, when a stranger walked by. In one arm, he carried a leaf blower. Tucked beneath the other was a DVD player. He pushed an electric lawnmower with his free hand. The man paused…
Farmers Branch has spent a remarkable amount of time, money and energy over the past several years battling to limit the influence of Hispanics. It’s infamous rental ban on people living in this country illegally cost the city seven years and $6 million in legal fees before it was struck…
In the wake of yesterday’s epic fail on transportation funding it looks like state legislators are headed back to Austin for a third month-long special session, and it won’t be cheap. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports this morning, each extra month the legislature’s in session costs $800,000, bringing the…
The image of John Rocker, his rope-veined neck pulsing as he charges maniacally from bullpen to pitcher’s mound, lives on in baseball history as a visual testament to the ubiquity of steroids in the game at the turn of the millennium. It lives on despite the fact that, unlike other…
The feds were quite pleased in 2010 when Operation Greedy Grove, their months-long takedown of a Pleasant Grove-based crack ring, resulted in 28 arrests and the seizure of several kilograms of cocaine, more than a dozen guns, and $210,000 cash. But the guys they picked up — “Rat,” “Ron Don,”…
There was a time not long ago when no one really cared that there was a trailer park on Commerce Street, a stone’s throw from downtown. The trailers, though generally well kept, seemed to be at home amidst the threadbare businesses and houses that characterize much of West Dallas, not…
