The woman whose sexual misconduct allegations led to the firing of Dallas County Heath and Human Services Director Zachary Thompson claims that Thompson coerced her into a series of sex acts over a two-year period that caused her to become “depressed, and, on a few dark days, suicidal.” “Zachary Thompson’s…
A Dallas County grand jury has indicted Wesley Mathews in the capital murder of his 3-year-old daughter. The grand jury also charged Mathews, 37, with tampering with physical evidence for allegedly dumping Sherin Mathews’ body in a culvert after killing her in the family’s garage. Mathews is now charged with…
Barring a last minute appeal, the Arlington Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade that’s stirred controversy for choosing Texas Governor Greg Abbott as its honorary grand marshal will not go forward. The organizers of the parade failed follow the steps necessary to get an events permit for the parade, the…
If white supremacist protesters want to defend the Confederate monuments at the Texas Capitol, they’re going to have to do so without their tiki torches. With one notable exception, the Texas Department of Public Safety is doing everything it can to prevent violent protests at the Capitol in 2018, banning…
Dallas has a long, proud history of Summer Olympics success. Skyline High School’s Michael Johnson is one of the best sprinters of all time. Tamika Catchings starred at Duncanville High School before winning four Olympic gold medals on the basketball court. Nastia Liukin and Madison Kocian both trained at North…
Any minute now, Dallas will finally get its first significant frozen precipitation this winter. While “accumulation of snow [is] not guaranteed for everyone,” according to Dallas weather god and WFAA meteorologist Pete Delkus, Dallas is under a winter weather advisory beginning at 2 p.m, despite temperatures having been near 60…
Five more Dallas County people have died from flu-related illness, bringing the total to 23 dead in one of the area’s worst flu seasons in decades, Dallas County Health and Human Services said Wednesday. Each of the victims, who ranged from 38 to 94 years old, had an underlying high-risk…
Sometime next month, Compassionate Cultivation, one of three Texas companies licensed to grow cannabis under 2015’s Compassionate Use Act, is going to roll out its first batch of cannibidiol oil, the low-THC medicine allowed under the law to patients with intractable epilepsy. It will do so despite uncertainty about federal…
Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents targeted 98 7-Eleven locations across the U.S. on Wednesday morning as part of an investigation into illegal immigration. Six of the stores targeted are in Dallas-Fort Worth. According to ICE, the agency arrested 21 people suspected of being in the United States illegally during…
Lime Bike has unveiled its latest weapon in its turf war with its fellow dock-less bike share startups — electric bikes. While the bikes don’t appear to be headed to Dallas as part of their initially roll-out, Dallas bike share riders could moving around at as much as 15 miles…
Dallas’ biggest sports story of 2018 isn’t going to be the Cowboys. Jerry Jones isn’t going to fire Jason Garrett, so his team won’t escape mediocrity. It’s not going to be the Mavs, who are still a couple of years away from competing in the NBA’s loaded Western Conference, or…
After a day and a half of deliberations, a Dallas County jury sentenced former Farmers Branch police officer Ken Johnson to 10 years in prison Tuesday for the 2016 murder of Jose Cruz. Johnson, 37, shot two teenagers in March 2016 after he caught them breaking into his Chevy Tahoe at…
Right now, Dallas residents and visitors are free to panhandle whenever they want, however they want, as long as they don’t solicit from people in cars or commit another criminal offense, like assault. That’s the upshot of the Dallas Police Department’s new training bulletin on panhandling enforcement, issued in response…
It is a strange choice. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, not exactly known for a positive record on civil or minority rights, is going to be the honorary grand marshal of Arlington’s new, Toyota-sponsored, Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade next Monday, leaving many DFW civil rights organizations wondering what the…
Former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez called for an end to “hate and vitriol” and opportunity “as big as the Texas sky” Sunday afternoon during her official campaign kickoff event at Tyler Station in Oak Cliff. “We should be lending a hand up, not tearing them down. We must be…
Following a 2017 filled with legal trouble, Joshua Baish, the owner of the now-defunct Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in Denton, kicked off 2018 with an early morning arrest. Baish, according to a Denton County arrest warrant affidavit, punched one of his former employees outside Andy’s Bar before hopping in his…
Hope Hicks can now add “being objectified by the president of the United States” to the narrow list of accomplishments she’s racked up as she’s gone from SMU English major to White House communications director. According to Michael Wolff’s new presidential tell-all Fire and Fury, Hicks, a former model and Gossip…
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Thursday announcement couldn’t have come at a worse time for Texas’ nascent medical cannabis industry. After years of detente during the Obama administration, Sessions rescinded the Cole memo, a Department of Justice directive that federal law enforcement not crack down on marijuana-related activity otherwise protected…
Dallas County fired Health and Human Services Director Zach Thompson after sexual harassment allegations made by another Dallas County employee, according to a press release from a law firm representing the woman. “Our client has alleged a pattern and practice of sexual abuse, harassment, intimidation and retaliation by Mr. Thompson,”…
Zach Thompson, director of Dallas County Human Health and Human Services, is out of the job he held since 2003. Initial media reports Thursday afternoon indicated that Thompson planned to retire Jan. 31, but DCHHS spokeswoman Renae Crutchfield told the Observer that Thompson has been off the job since Dec. 29…
Over the last couple of weeks, a small furor has developed around the issue of combating panhandling in Dallas. The week before Christmas, several Dallas Police Department commanders ordered their troops to stop issuing citations for “solicitation by coercion” — aggressive panhandling — or panhandling near gas pumps or ATMs…
Many things aren’t clear about Dallas’ growing hoard of bike-share bikes — how many of them there are, whether their owners will ever make money off of them or if they’re just separating Silicon Valley venture capitalists from their cash — but some things are. The bikes, as evidenced by…
