1. Residential burglaries are up more than 14 percent through April, and there are many guesses as to why that is: weather, more petty criminals on the street due to jail over-crowding, a souring economy. My guess: More suburban criminals moving into Dallas.
2. Instead of admitting he stole money from Paul Quinn College and avoiding jail time, former Dallas council member James Fantroy kept quiet and received 30 days in the slammer. This is the sort of thing that always gets Tim’s panties in a bunch. Not me, though. I can’t explain why I think that decision makes perfect sense to me, but it does. Maybe I just like dumb, stubborn people.
3. No one was injured in an early-morning apartment fire in southeast Dallas, but several folks had to jump out of second-story windows to save themselves. Fifteen families were left homeless. Didn’t mean to leave you on a downer. Just happened that way.
7 comments
If Fantroy is planning an appeal, apologizing would be an admission of guilt, right?
Not that I think he’s not guilty. A loan is usually something all parties know about. Taking money from a business deal with the intention of putting it back, but not telling anyone about it is not a loan, it’s embezzlement. It also kinda irks me that he equates himself with MLK.
Fantroy will be dead before he gets an appellate court date.
Did I hear that Sandra Crenshaw was holding a rally for him? Supporting his claims of innocence, saying that she knows what it’s like to be accused falsely of a crime?
Wonder if the verified response debate will be resurrected?
I think Betty Culbreath’s quote is most telling: “Anybody who is as sick as he says he is needs to repent and ask for forgiveness from his community.”
My take: Assuming he’s a Christian man, Mr. Fantroy’s ultimate judge may not offer apology as an option.
If a 20-year old African American stole a $20,000 car, would he get 30 days in jail?
“Let’s say you’re an economist trying to measure the effect of imprisonment on crime rates. What you would ideally like to do is have a few randomly chosen states suddenly release 10,000 prisoners, while another few random states lock up an extra 10,000 people. In the absence of such a perfect experiment, you are forced to rely on creative proxies – like lawsuits that charge various states with prison overcrowding, which down the road lead to essentially random releases of large numbers of prisoners. (And yes, crime in those states does rise sharply after the prisoners are released.)”
NY Times, 9/11/2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/magazine/11FREAK.html