Last year, the Texas Legislature passed on the chance to ban cops and security guards from using Tasers and pepper spray on students in public school. With the state’s largest police group, the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, lobbying against it (the bill “prohibits school district peace officers from…
The outcome of the federal investigation into Garland ISD’s H1-B program, which recruited dozens of bilingual teachers from foreign countries and is now sending many of them back, is uncertain. But if past federal H1-B cases involving school districts are any indication, it could cost the district. Big time. There…
At midday on Wednesday, Dallas police and firefighters broke down the front door of a small townhome in the 1800 block of Browder Street in the Cedars to perform a welfare check. Inside, they found the bodies of Nick and Vanessa Pitofsky, both dead of gunshot wounds. Police are describing…
In a wholly unexpected and incredibly bizarre turn of events, Republican lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick offered an endorsement of gay marriage so enthusiastic that he suggested doing away with heterosexual unions in the process. Patrick, heretofore the most conservative candidate in the race — a man who vociferously denies…
It’ll still be a while before gay couples are allowed to legally allowed to marry in Texas, but they took a big step today when a federal court ruled that the state’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Orlando wrote in an opinion on Wednesday that the constitutional…
The Trinity River lakes were never going to be humongous. Seventy-five or 80 acres each, according to the Balanced Vision Plan developed for the Trinity River Corridor Project in 2003. But now the plans have been reduced to something so small — a couple of 20-acre ponds reaching a depth…
If The Dallas Morning News’ brief account of the Monday morning robbery of Hometown Day Spa left you a bit confused, you’re forgiven. Two armed men walk in and credibly pass themselves off as customers for several minutes as they plot their heist? The answer, as always, can be found…
Dallas has three options to address its $900 million in street repair needs, all of them terrible. Here’s how Councilwoman Sandy Greyson laid them out during the transporation committee’s come-to-Jesus meeting on Monday: “We can put these things in our bond program and keep increasing our debt service. We can…
The Dallas Police Department officially unveiled plans this week to encourage officers to tweet more, as part of a wider social-media strategy that includes beefing up the department’s blog and Facebook page and posting more photos on Pinterest. We welcome the DPD’s expanded entry into the highly competitive world of…
It’s not easy to call the cops on your boyfriend when he’s a powerful judge, but in the beginning, it seemed that the law was on Maggie Strother’s side. Dallas Police Department officers visited the Uptown condo of state District Judge Carlos Cortez on December 28. There, Strother showed them…
At least six people were injured by blocks of ice and snow sliding off the roof of Cowboys Stadium during Super Bowl Week in 2011. But in the aftermath, Arlington officials suggested that the guy who suffered the worst injuries had only himself to blame. In emails released by the…
It’s not entirely clear why Garland ISD turned an internal investigation into its H1-B visa program over to the feds. The district’s official line was that it “felt obligated” to tell the U.S. Department of Homeland Security based on the “recommendations of third-party legal counsel,” which was rather opaque. So…
Rewind for a moment to the morning of April 15, 2013. Tyrone Allen, 26, allegedly murders his pregnant girlfriend in Hamilton Park, then leads police on a wild 40-minute chase that ends about a block from where it began. He’s finally pulled from beneath a house and arrested after a…
William Ian Brown did not have a prescription for the single alprazolam (Xanax) pill he was allegedly carrying in his pocket when he was arrested on Sunday. A crime, to be sure, but a minor one. If prosecutors decided to pursue the case — given that it was a single…
Nine months ago, Skye Wyatt’s legal fortunes suffered what appeared to be a serious blow when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that Kilgore ISD had violated no established law when her high school softball coaches told her mother she was a lesbian. Now, Wyatt’s…
It’s a curious phenomenon, the “death row groupies” who become enamored with men who committed some of the most vile crimes you can imagine. When Scott Peterson arrived at California’s San Quentin State Prison fresh off a conviction of murdering his wife and unborn child, he received a marriage proposal…
In sports, as in life, it’s best to avoid unforced errors. Don’t fumble the snap. Don’t foul the three-point shooter. Don’t walk in the winning run. And for the love of God don’t, 15 years after the fact, piss on the graves of a dozen college kids who died in…
Last year, the city of Dallas abruptly shut down Project Reconnect, its $1.6 million effort to help ex-prisoners get housing and job training, amidst an investigation into nepotism and misallocation of funds. The Dallas Morning News reported that the inquiry centered on $91,000-per-year director Suanne Spires Durham and the possibility…
Just a few days after the Weather Channel published a damning, in-depth report documenting how natural gas drilling is wreaking havoc on Texas’ air quality, a group of wealthy property owners outside Dallas are dealing with another dark side of the energy boom: a really ugly water tower. Residents of…
The main danger posed by Dallas’ tepid growth is, as Councilman Scott Griggs pointed out this week, that the city will find itself without enough tax revenue to maintain its sprawling infrastructure. Raise taxes and make repairs or let things decay, either response will drive people away, crunching the budget…
If Tink Nathan doesn’t belong in the Texas Legislature, we’re not sure if anyone does. The 72-year-old Republican from Kerr County, just northwest of San Antonio, has the whole package: scraggly frontiersman beard; monogrammed Texas flag shirt; an eponymous line of hunting products derived from deer urine. He’s the guy…
There are two sides to every story, and on Thursday, District Judge Carlos Cortez’s version of what happened at his Uptown condo on the night of December 28 won out, when a Dallas County grand jury declined to indict him on charges that he choked his girlfriend and held her…
