Members of both parties in the Texas Legislature are pushing bills to reform civil forfeiture laws in Texas. The state allows law enforcement agencies to file legal actions against property that the agency believes is owned by a criminal or otherwise connected to criminal activity. That way, they can seize property even…
If you put aside the issue of bribery in the ongoing federal corruption trial of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price — the jury will decide that one — and just look at what he did, his behavior may look mild next to the way public business gets done in…
Week four of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price’s federal corruption trial was a short one. Thanks to two scheduled days off at the end of the week, jurors who have already suffered through three weeks of repetitive government testimony got a break. The testimony they did hear, however, was…
A month ago civic leader Walt Humann posted an essay on the op-ed page of The Dallas Morning News saying it would be a terrible mistake for the city to take sales tax money away from DART, our regional mass transit agency, and use it to save the Dallas Police…
Last week, 11-year-old and L.V. Stockard Middle School student Julio Ortiz killed himself after being bullied. Last night, more than 100 people gathered inside a church in Oak Cliff, to discuss hot to stop it from happening again. The Hope City Dallas church and its nonprofit, volunteer Hope City Dream Center hosted the…
Wednesday morning, the Dallas City Council passed its long-gestating ethics reform package. The vote was unanimous,but it comes at the end of months of arguing over the grievances that serve as the basis for many of the new rules. In the end, some members griping that the new regulations aren’t…
If anyone knows John Wiley Price’s work on the Dallas County Commissioner’s Court, it’s Mike Cantrell. The two served on the court together for more than 20 years. Often, they’ve butted heads — Cantrell is the only Republican currently on the court, while Price is a stalwart Democrat — but…
The approach of a June 3 court-imposed deadline — when more than 100 poor families are to be tossed out of their homes in West Dallas — is creating a political pressure-cooker. None of the parties to this dispute wants to be blamed when the TV cameras show up to…
Sometimes using a burner phone isn’t enough. That’s a lesson learned for John Rivello, the Maryland 29-year-old currently facing federal and state charges for sending a flashing GIF to Dallas journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who is epileptic. Rivello’s story starts with his decision, sometime in the winter of 2016, to harass…
Dallas Police announced Tuesday afternoon they’ve arrested an Oklahoma man for the March 18 hit-and-run death of Rachel Spelman on Cedar Springs Road in Dallas. Spelman, 23, died sometime after 2:10 a.m., when she was struck by a dark-colored sedan while attempting to cross the street. Witnesses at the scene…
Here’s a scary thing, and please don’t think I’m trying to make a joke. A child died. A man died. And those are just the ones we know about. So I’m not trying to be funny about the ongoing crisis in the Dallas 911 emergency service. But “ghost calls”? Before…
Ethan Couch, the Tarrant County teen who killed four people while driving drunk in 2013, petitioned the Texas Supreme Court for early release from Tarrant County Jail late last week. Couch, jailed last year for violating probation, says that the judge who sentenced him to nearly two years in prison…
The quadrotor rises with a thin, reedy buzz as it takes off on its maiden flight. It’s Christmas 2016, and hundreds of thousands of drone pilots across the United States are experiencing similar moments. My wife bought it for me, one of what consumer associations say is more than 1.5…
Once every two years, the nonpartisan U.S. Elections Project releases a data package updating the current state of voter turnout in the United States. For the state of Texas, the news contained within the most recent report is abysmal. Texas, according to data released last week, had the 49th worst…
There are two big questions to which Dallas police and fire officers need to demand answers quickly, as negotiations in the legislature on a bill to reconstitute their pension fund near an end. These questions are about the two main issues looming over the debate. The first issue, clawback, may…
Ever ready to rush in with a press release where the religious liberty of Texas public school students is threatened, even when it isn’t, the Texas Attorney General’s office fired off a letter to Frisco ISD on Friday warning them that a “prayer room” available to Liberty High School’s 2,100 students had…
First, very serious caveats about the ongoing federal corruption trial of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price. He’s innocent until proven guilty. The jury is weeks, maybe months from deliberations. OK, that’s out of the way. Now let me ask the obvious question — the one I hear whispered every…
For most of the afternoon Friday, Southern Methodist University’s men’s basketball team looked on par with the 2016-2017 season; in other words, one of the very best teams in the United States. Led by star wing Semi Ojeleye and athleticism, the Mustangs leveraged into a 53-43 lead with 11:36 remaining…
Last week, a 6-month-old infant died after his babysitter used her cellular phone to call 911 three times without getting an answer. When someone picked up, the babysitter languished on hold for a half hour before getting assistance. The City of Dallas labeled the issue as “ghost calls” from phones on the…
Great news this afternoon from Dallas City Council member Scott Griggs. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has shot down the city’s request to have the Trinity River legally downgraded to a non-navigable river rather than fix a fake kayaking rapids built by the city. “This I will not do,”…
More than a month has passed since Robert Fabian was arrested for trying to conceal his girlfriend Zuzu Verk’s skeletal remains in a shallow grave in Brewster County. Now a Brewster County Grand Jury has indicted him for Verk’s murder, setting a bond of $750,000. The announcement was made on…
After nearly a month of searching, Dallas police announced Thursday afternoon that they’d arrested Ray Charles Keys. Police say Keys, known as “Cowboy,” beat a man to death on Feb. 17 because he believed the victim assaulted a woman. On Thursday, police got the drop on Keys. After receiving a suspicious…
