Texas Rangers outfielder Leonys Martin followed a risky but well-trodden path to the Major Leagues. Like many Cuban ballplayers before him, he defected in 2010 while in Japan for the World University Baseball Championship. He made his way to the United States several months later and signed a lucrative, $15.5…
The kids in Head Start just can’t catch a break. If it’s not the federal government shutting down or arbitrarily cutting funding to the low-income preschool program, it’s petty thieves breaking into their classrooms. At 4 a.m. on Wednesday, one such criminal broke into Head Start of Greater Dallas’ preschool…
A Texas state trooper was arrested in Cleburne Tuesday night after allegedly buying 6 grams of methamphetamine. According to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, 47-year-old Jimmy Jay Gillman, an officer in the Texas Department of Public Safety’s commercial vehicle enforcement unit, was picked up just after 9 p.m. in front…
Less than four months after taking over as executive director of the Rockwall Housing Development Corp. in June 2009, assuming full control of the nonprofit’s finances and The Meadows, its 36-unit public housing a couple of blocks off Interstate 30, Jennifer Tyson made out a check to “reimbursement,” took it…
The house on Allencrest Lane — a tidy four-bedroom, three-bath ranch-style in North Dallas — isn’t the first place one would look for a weed-growing mastermind named Bone. Nevertheless, that’s where DEA agents tracked down 37-year-old Brian Edward Deloney in June 2010, not to mention several gallon-sized bags of hydroponic…
On October 14, Bobby Bennett was scooting across a cul-de-sac in an office chair in front of two advancing Dallas police officers. He held a knife, but he stood flat-footed, his arms at his sides, a safe distance from the cops. Seconds later, Officer Cardan Spencer inexplicably opened fire. Bennett…
Teresa Mendez no doubt looked like an easy mark as she stepped to the front door of her Jefferson Boulevard apartment Sunday night. Shouldn’t be any trouble to sneak up behind her, flash a knife and make off with her purse. But Mendez’s would-be robber never quite made it to…
Last August, a couple of years removed from a two-year stint in the Texas prison system, John David Waguepack sat down for a thoroughly fascinating Reddit “Ask Me Anything,” or AMA, in which he offered a highly detailed, unvarnished glimpse of life behind bars. Among the subjects he touches on…
An Arlington head shop clerk is facing murder charges after allegedly gunning down a suspected shoplifter on Tuesday. Police arrived at Smoking Dragon Gifts in the 5900 block of South Cooper Street just before 11 a.m. Tuesday to find Jonathan Brian Lambert, 28, and another employee holding two other men…
On early Sunday morning, a man crossing Harry Hines Boulevard was stuck by a car, which then crashed into a second car. Both of the drivers took off, leaving the man to die in the road. The police could find no witnesses to the crash, but put the pieces together…
When word came out of Grayson County last August that a drunk and nude Randy Travis had been arrested after crashing his car and lying naked in the middle of a farm-to-market road near Tioga, pretty much every reporter’s first instinct was to ask for the dash-cam footage. No dice…
Rounding out a day of heroic animal rescues in North Texas, Arlington police on Monday tracked down Captain Jack, a parrot nabbed from a local body shop more than a week ago. The bird, APD said in its plea for public assistance, was the mascot of Sunrise Automotive on East…
Legend has it that the slaves who once labored in the fields of the LeBeau Plantation never entirely left. Cruelly mistreated, some to their death, their restless spirits wandered through their master’s sprawling mansion, taking revenge upon its occupants. One by one, the LeBeau family was driven mad, two of…
Dallas police officer Christopher Watson didn’t pull the trigger on Bobby Gerald Bennett, the mentally ill man shot in Rylie last month. That was his partner Carden Spencer, who was fired and may face criminal charges. What Watson did was tell investigators, on two separate occasions, that when the officers…
In the real world, jewelry store heists don’t typically play out like they do in Hollywood. Sunday morning’s holdup of a jewelry store in Irving was an exception. Irving police have released surveillance footage of the robbery showing seven masked individuals, several carrying handguns, smashing through a locked a glass…
One of the prerequisites for holding statewide office in Texas nowadays is the gun-toting photo op. Governor Rick Perry’s done plenty. So has Attorney General Greg Abbott and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst is the rare exception — just more proof that he can’t be trusted. Attorney…
When Naim Rasool Muhammad went on trial this spring for killing his two young sons — an act for which he was sentenced to death — local news outlets focused mainly on the brutality of the crime, and understandably so. Muhammad kidnapped 5-year-old Naim and 3-year-old Elijah in August as…
On Friday afternoon, Kim Cope was driving along Beach Street in North Fort Worth on her lunch break when she was stopped at a police roadblock. After being ushered into a nearby parking lot, she was given a menu of options. “They were asking for cheek swabs,” she told NBC…
It’s not like anyone needs another reason to hate the Transportation Security Administration, whose groping and overly revealing body scans have made air travel only slightly less unpleasant than riding Greyhound. Yet the agents at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport seem keen on providing more of them. Last month, it was…
On Friday, fed up with the ineffectual legislative and judicial responses to rampant gun violence and in the spirit of open and honest academic debate, Texas A&M University law Professor Meg Penrose offered the not-so-modest suggestion that the United States do away with the Second Amendment. “Unfortunately, drastic times require…
Jose Luis Bedoy is sort of like the Richard Gere character in Pretty Woman. He, too, became smitten by a woman of the night, despite his better judgment, and he, too, risked his career to keep the relationship alive. There are, however, some key differences, which are described in detail…
Favian LaTorre wasn’t too keen on paying child support, so the Dallas ISD police sergeant made his former lover an offer. Instead of forking over a specified portion of his $46,000 salary every month, he would hire a full-time, live-in nanny to help raise their young child. The child’s mother,…
