In 2007, ex-offender support groups in a handful of states began huddling together under a national faith-based umbrella called Out4Life, combining efforts to help prisoners find work and housing, break old drug and alcohol habits, and generally do what it takes to keep out of prison. For life. Texas became…
A release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office just arrived with the following subject header: “Two Plead Guilty in Pill ‘Smurfing’ Case.” Oh, right. That kind of smurfing. To the feds’ more formal definition: “the unlawful practice of making numerous purchases of over-the-counter medication containing pseudoephedrine so that it can be…
It was just one month ago that Dallas Police Officer Jeffrey Thorn was arrested for an alleged sexual assault not far from DPD HQ in the Cedars. Today, the department sends word that yet another officer is behind bars: Isac De La Rosa, a 3-year veteran assigned to the Southwest…
This just in from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: The agency, along with the Office of Homeland Security Investigations National Gang Unit and an alphabet’s soup worth of local law enforcement agencies, spent the last five days sweeping Dallas-Fort Worth for gang members and their associates, and when all…
In 1997, Jacob Whitt was a 21-year-old anxious to get out of his tiny Central Florida hometown and start a life somewhere new. Truckers passing through told him Dallas was the place to move if he wanted to make some money, so that August he headed west, moving in with…
We’d just pulled up to the corner of Kiest Boulevard and Polk Street in Southwest Dallas this afternoon when a guy in a black Ford Escort rolled down his window to talk to a pony-tailed undercover vice cop. She’d been milling around outside a car wash in a swimsuit and…
Last month, as you and no doubt Andrea recall, the Dallas Police Department launched its summer-safety initiative: Operation Triangle, so named for its three main goals: reducing property crime, violent crime and public disorder. And, yes, while those are good year-round goals, DPD says there’s a “spike” in such activities…
Earlier today I drove up to the home of the deceased mayor of Coppell, Jayne Peters, and her daughter, Corinne, who were found dead in their home last night after Mayor Peters failed to show up for a council meeting. No doubt you’ve read much of the coverage already, but…
This morning, the Associated Press tells the tale of Stephen Brodie, a deaf inmate serving time in the TDCJ’s Estelle Unit till 2012 — and, quite possibly, yet another innocent man imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. In 1991, Richardson police detained a 19-year-old Brodie for “stealing quarters from…
Lisa Stone disappeared on June 4, and her friends in the Dallas LGBT community are disseminating a flier and have created a Facebook page, according to the Dallas Voice’s InstantTea blog. Photographs and Stone’s birth certificate were found in a dumpster near her home, while Stone’s purse and pets were…
I finally spoke with Dallas Police Department Deputy Chief Vince Golbeck, head of the Central Patrol Division, concerning Officer Perry Strickland’s decision to fire off 13 rounds of pepper balls on Lowest Greenville Avenue early Sunday morning, just as clubs were closing. Golbeck has already acknowledged that Strickland, a six-year…
On Monday I recounted my late-night, pepper-spray-scented trip to Lowest Greenville Avenue. Since then, I’ve been trying to get some response from Dallas Police Department. But yesterday DPD spokesperson Janice Crowther said, in short, there was nothing to respond to: She told Unfair Park that if an officer fired pepper…
Again, this is Candy Evans’s beat — why, just today she noted over on D’s DallasDirt that the former manse of Eleanor and Nicky Sheets is selling at half off the original asking price after it failed to move at an IRS auction in February. Nevertheless, this just in from…
Two years ago, John Crowder was playing basketball for God’s Academy in Grand Prairie and considered one of the top talents in Dallas-Fort Worth. He was 15. Crowder came to the area to escape life in his native Baltimore, where, he says in a 2008 video on The Dallas Morning…
The Unfair Park in-box has been filling up with reminders from DPD in advance of the July 4 weekend, chief among them that by-now familiar heads-up concerning the department’s long-standing No-Refusal DWI Initiative. Which is to say: Beginning tonight at 6, if you’re pulled over from driving while intoxicated and…
That’s quite the hodgepodge. Nonetheless, to the briefs …Avi Adelman, first to the story despite what you read elsewhere, brings the latest news concerning Lost Society on Lower Greenville Avenue: The landlords have done put a padlock on the place. And that’s not all: Co-owner Brightman Nwatu, already faced with…
Jeffrey Thorn joined the Dallas Police Department in December 2008. During his probationary period, he was assigned to the Southeast Patrol Division. But, at this very moment, Thorn is in the Lew Sterrett Justice Center after having been arrested by Dallas police on a sexual assault charge today. Lt. Andy…
The story of Lost Society co-owner Brightman “Brian” Nwatu hit The Dallas Morning News this morning, but it’s nothing new to Avi Adelman. Soon as I saw the tale of the Lower Greenville bar owner who’s been evading deportation for five years, I went over to Barking Dogs, where, sure…
I was out of the office Friday evening when the e-mail from City Manager Mary Suhm first came in alerting media to the fact several Dallas police officers had been called in by Deputy Chief Julian Bernal to provide a funeral escort for DPD Chief David Brown’s son. By now…
This just in from the Dallas Police Department concerning an attempted smash-and-grab at the mall at around 3 this morning:Dallas Police Officers Responded to a call at North Park Mall at 8687 North Central Expressway regarding an open building. A witness who works at NorthPark Mall told officers that after…
Speaking of criminals …Courthouse News today has this lawsuit brought by an Austin law firm against the City of Arlington, in which Sullo & Bobbitt PLLC claims that the city, by moving its criminal records to municipal court, is attempting to restrict access to docs every other city in the…
Avid mug-shot magazine readers (or picture-lookers) will have noticed some changes in that sliver of the media landscape since our first mention of Busted and Mugly! earlier this month. I’ve been trying to reach Busted’s Ryan Chief to learn more about the shame rag business around here, and finally caught…
