What good do you think it would do for Dallas to carry out the moral, political and social equivalent of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission process of the late ’90s? What if we took a deep dive into the specific decisions in our past that put us where…
Among the biggest immediate challenges faced by Dallas police Chief U. Renee Hall is the riddle of the Dallas Police Department’s recruitment and retention. The department hemorrhaged officers in early 2017 as the tenure of her predecessor ended, dipping from 3,700 officers at the department’s peak to about 3,000 officers, a 10-year…
Can a reporter become an elected official? I know it’s legally possible, but isn’t it some kind of crime against nature? When WFAA-TV (Channel 8) investigative reporter Brett Shipp announced his resignation last week to run for Congress, most of the immediate comments painted him as an ingénue, a guy…
The Rangers got bad news Friday afternoon: Japan’s two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani is not going to Arlington. Worse still for the Rangers and their fans is that Ohtani and his unique talents are headed to the Los Angeles Angels. For the next six years, the Rangers will have to deal…
Dallas resident Penny Howard thought she would have longer with her 5-year-old daughter, Harper. Harper was born in April 2010 with a rare, life-threatening disorder called CDKL5 epilepsy. The girl died in January 2016, but her life and death are making an impact in the world of orphan diseases, the term for…
Competitors and attendees of the Call of Duty World League tournament evacuated Dallas’ Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center twice this weekend after anonymous bomb threats. Dallas police confirmed that they received a second bomb threat against the convention center Sunday afternoon, prompting another evacuation of the building and a second interruption to…
A Dallas County grand jury indicted two Dallas Police Department officers Thursday for their role in the death of Tony Timpa. Both officers are charged with misdemeanor deadly conduct. On August 10, 2016, Timpa panicked in the parking lot of the New Fine Arts adult video store at 1720 Mockingbird…
A University of North Texas professor will head to Russia next week to attend a forum with one of the most controversial figures in international sports — Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko, whom the Olympics recently banned from all future games for his alleged participation in Russia’s doping program. The Russian…
To our regret or good fortune time only will tell, but Dallas is a great laboratory for viewing the forces roiling around American cities. We’ve got thunder overhead, rumblings in the basement and maybe a great day ahead. Nationally, the divide between cities and everybody else has been consuming ink…
Less than a month after U.S. Rep. Pete Session voted for the GOP’s sweeping overhaul of the federal tax system, the Dallas congressman pushed back Thursday on one of the bill’s most controversial provisions, asking his colleagues in the House to dump a provision that could cost U.S. university students…
One week after finding out he’d be hanging onto his deputy chief position during a shakeup of the Dallas Police Department, Vernon Hale is leaving. Hale, who was set to become head of DPD’s Tactical Support Division, will instead resign and move to the Galveston Police Department on Jan. 2. “I…
A big picture isn’t necessarily good because it’s big. What if the picture misses the elephant? How does that help? During Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings’ state of the city address Tuesday, he announced he is launching an initiative he calls Goals for Dallas 2030, fashioned after a 1960s thing called…
A Dallas County Grand Jury has indicted Derick Wiley, a former officer for the Mesquite Police Department, for shooting Lyndo Jones last month as Jones attempted to disable his truck’s alarm system. The grand jury charged Wiley with aggravated assault by a public servant, a felony punishable by five to…
Women in uptown have been assaulted four times in the last 14 months, and police believe it could be the work of one perpetrator. While the crimes share a set of circumstances — they each occurred between 12:45 and 2:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning as the victim walked toward…
Brett Shipp, Channel 8’s longtime investigative and political reporter, quit the station on Tuesday to run for congress, the station announced Tuesday. Shipp, who’s been with WFAA for 22 years, is joining the already crowded Democratic primary field in Texas U.S. House District 32, the seat currently occupied by Republican…
Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez is running for governor. The sheriff will resign her post Wednesday morning, before officially kicking off her campaign at Texas Democratic Party headquarters in Austin. “Like so many hardworking Texans, I know it’s tough deciding between buying food, finding a decent place to live, and…
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a small percentage of people who are unaware they have HIV account for nearly half of the ongoing transmission of the virus. The CDC says a majority of those unknowingly infected lived in Texas and other Southern states, where…
An eight-man delegation of Texas Rangers officials and personnel met with superstar Japanese pitcher and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to multiple reports from beat writers. The Rangers are one of seven teams remaining in the hunt for Ohtani, along with the Mariners, Angels, Padres,…
Forgive me. Force of habit. Earlier this week, I wandered slow-wittedly into what I foolishly mistook for an ancient and easy standby in the newspaper business, a story known by a newsroom shorthand as “Dog Bites Kid.” I see my error. The real story was “Dog Is Kid.” I thought…
A Dallas County judge ruled Tuesday afternoon that the parents of a Richardson toddler found dead in October will not be allowed to see their other daughter even if they successfully post bail. Judge Cheryl Lee Shannon found that “aggravated circumstances” surrounding the death of 3-year-old Sherin Mathews necessitated that Wesley…
Travis Strickland has been fighting the war on drugs for more than a decade. He’s a sergeant in the Lufkin Police Department’s special services division, which includes the street crime and narcotics units. The job used to involve taking apart methamphetamine labs that sprouted like prickly pears around rural Texas…
Over the weekend, an unknown group of suspects peppered Southern Methodist University’s Park Cities campus with white nationalist banners and posters opposing the LGBTQ community and urging white men to “reject the opioid beast.” Texas Vanguard, a white supremacist group, claimed responsibility online for putting up the material, posting photos…
