Articles about Crime
(Sort of) Breaking: Dallas Fugitive Josh Lankford Found in Costa Rica
Some Frontburnervians have probably been around here enough to remember discussions about Dallas businessman/stock broker Josh Lankford – a pretty decent rundown of links is here. And, full disclosure, I did work for him for a time.
Lankford has been on the lam for several years after being accused of helping run a few pump-and-dump scams. He’s into the SEC now for more than $94 million in penalties.
Well, just as quietly (presumably, since I wasn’t there) as he left, he was apprehended, apparently. Came across a Financial Times story from last week that was actually about federal whistleblowers. Read the entire damned story before I saw a name that I instantly recognized – Josh Lankford, my old boss.
The story, which you have to register to see (it’s free, but unless you really like reading Financial Times, probably a hassle), seemed like just this random story about snitches until the last few paragraphs, which quote Jordan Thomas, a former SEC attorney who helped create the whistleblower rules the agency now uses.
Thomas says one of his clients tipped the Feds off to “surveillance photos and satellite coordinates of the home and office of Joshua Lankford, a U.S. businessman charged criminally in 2009 with two others for allegedly stealing $20m from investors in a pump and dump scheme. Mr. Lankford,” the article continues, “was arrested in Costa Rica in September. The U.S. is seeking extradition. People familiar with the case say the FBI located Mr. Lankford independently from the whistleblower tip.”
So welcome back to the States, Josh?
ESD Reaches Sex Scandal Settlement
Last year a jury awarded about $10 million to the family of a student who had had a sexual relationship with her teacher at Episcopal School of Dallas. Claire St. Amant told the tale of the whole sordid affair, and ESD’s attempts to make the matter go away quietly, in our October issue.
Today the Dallas Morning News reports that the family and the school have reached a settlement in the civil suit. Both sides declined to disclose the amount of the settlement, but reporter Diane Jennings notes that they had earlier agreed that $6 million might be more appropriate.
Local Police Meet with NORML Leaders
Over the weekend Royce West hosted a community meeting in Oak Cliff called “Eggs and Issues.” Several local police chiefs and Sheriff Lupe Valdez made an appearance too. Also in attendance were local NORML board members Larry Talley and Eric Moreno, who wanted to talk to the police about, you know, maybe not arresting people for pot possession. In an email this morning, Talley said that “this was an unusually productive event for the issues regarding Harm Reduction.” Talley and Moreno describe the meeting — and another meeting with the Sheriff the group is planning — in this video.
Highland Park Star Basketball Player Arrested For DWI: When is a Kid No Longer a Kid?
Today’s news that the star basketball player for Highland Park High School was arrested by University Park Police for driving while intoxicated raises a couple old questions from my past life as a community newspaper publisher, editor, and reporter:
1. When should a kid stop getting treated like a kid?
2. Is a high school athlete a public figure?
I know my responses to both those questions, mostly. And we know how both People Newspapers and the Dallas Morning News would answer those questions, since both outlets today reported the arrest of the 18-year-old player, David Allen. But there are many, most especially people in the Park Cities, who feel differently. I know this because I’ve been through a similar situation before.
Leading Off (2/13/12)
Mayor Reveals Southern Dallas Plan Today: Lots to sort through regarding Mayor Rawlings’ new Southern Dallas initiative, “GrowSouth,” which he will formally announce this afternoon at South Side on Lamar. The Dallas Morning News praises it in this editorial as “exactly the kind of enthusiastic and bold approach we’ve been seeking,” while News reporter Rudy Bush notes (paywall) South Dallas plans are a staple with mayors while actual progress remains elusive. Still, there are some tangibles in the plan, like $600K for tearing down dilapidated and abandoned houses. The mayor also wants to help promote new neighborhood associations, “adopt” four schools, and has identified nine “opportunity areas,” such as Jefferson Blvd., which he called “our complete street . . . Let’s just make this thing come to life.” In other words, the vocab sounds right, but the challenge, as always, will be getting investors and competing interests on the same page.
Fort Worth Girl Kidnapped By Mother Found: Daughter and mother, who was feared to be mentally ill and suicidal by relatives, were found near a National Park in New Mexico. Both were tired and hungry, but safe.
Credit Agency Fitch Fears American Airlines Layoffs Impact on DFW: In a message released last Thursday, the credit agency Fitch suggests the 13,000 jobs AA plans to eliminate may have a detrimental effect on the airline company’s home region, where it employs 25,000 people. But the agency did throw in a caveat: it “anticipates limited negative effects to individual cities given the breadth of the employment base.” So there’s that.
Derek Holland’s Harry Carry: Funny or Obnoxious? The Rangers’ pitcher brought his Harry Caray impression to WFAA, where, accompanied by Dale Hansen’s cackles, he delivered Mavs and Stars news. Funny or not? You decide.
Despite What You’ve Read, Police Incident Reports Are Available
In today’s Dallas Morning News, there’s a story that says dallaspolice.net is still offline after being attacked by hackers. And this morning, police beat writer Scott Goldstein tweeted “Still no @DallasPD website this morning after weekend hacker attack that police won’t call a hacker attack.”
Yet this week’s editions of Park Cities People, Preston Hollow People, and Oak Cliff People — which went to press last night and will be delivered this afternoon — are chock full of crime news. How did this happen?
Well, ever-resourceful reporter Bradford Pearson figured out that the incident reports can be accessed if you bypass the home page and type in a slightly different URL: policereports.dallaspolice.net.
You’re welcome, Scott.
Could Yesterday’s DART Arapaho Center Station Shooting Have Been Prevented by More Cops?
News reports, like the one from WFAA above, say that the Transportation Security Administration and Dallas Police are offering to help DART Police secure their stations, following yesterday’s shooting, the latest in what seems like a string of violent public transit incidents. This would involve having more officers posted on DART trains and at DART stations.
Would that have made a difference for Eric Johnson, who lost his life when a DART police officer exchanged gunfire with a man who’d been turned away from riding a bus for trying to board with an expired pass?
When we’re faced with tragedies like this, it’s natural that we want to do something to prevent such a senseless act from occurring again. But isn’t the plain fact that we live in a big city, with a lot of other people, some of whom are prone from time to time to commit awful acts?
Things like this are going to happen. After all, there was already an officer on the scene.
And, as WFAA reports, one of yesterday’s victims claims he was struck by a bullet fired by the officer, not the suspect.
Media Horde Descends Upon Arapaho Center Station
That is, if a “media horde” can be defined as two TV crews, a Morning News reporter, a Morning News photographer, and me. I was the only one not asking commuters how they felt about yesterday’s deadly shooting. I was just trying to commute, while wondering why someone would open fire on a cop rather than spend less than $5 on a day pass.
Randy Travis Arrested For Being Drunk at Church
Randy Travis' mug
Denton County Sheriff’s Department arrested country singer Randy Travis at 1:30 a.m. today and released him later in the morning.
The Denton Record Chronicle reports that Travis was found in his car intoxicated with an open bottle of wine outside First Baptist Church of Sanger. He owns a ranch not too far away in Tioga.
The Morning News version notes Travis’ recent problems, how he had to walk offstage during a performance last year. But they make no mention of his having stolen his dentist’s wife.
Leading Off (2/6/12)
DART Light Rail Ridership High, But Bus Numbers Falter: Last year was the busiest year ever for Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail, but ridership on bus lines as well as the oldest light rail lines decreased by a combined 5 million trips (paywall). Why the drop? Officials say it is due to 1) DART bus passengers switching to new light rail service, and 2) the reduction in the frequency of blue and red line trains during rush hour. Both claims I believe, point again to how simple public transit really is. People will take public transit if it is fast and convenient. That’s why DART’s bus system needs an overhaul.
Horse Thieves Hit Camp For Disabled Kids: In the latest installment of crooks who are worse than crooks, two horses have been stolen form Camp El Har, a camp that offers therapy for kids with various disabilities, like autism. Now owners of two other horses on loan to the camp have removed their animals out of fear of further thefts, which has forced the camp to postpone its classes indefinitely.
Will ‘Black Atheist’ Billboard Ruffle Feathers? A group called African Americans for Humanism and the DFW Coalition of Reason will unveil a billboard today which voices support for atheists during African American history month. But while the billboard has already prompted some push-back from South Oak Cliff pastors, pre-event controversy also led to an unexpected act of community service: members of the DFW Coalition of Reason turned out at Pastor Kyev Tatum’s church garden Sunday to help harvest their greens, which will be donated to local food banks. Tatum reconciled the art of charity like this: “the devil might have picked it, but the good lord sent it.”
How Plano Kicked Its Heroin Habit, How Dallas’ Thomas Jefferson High School Is Kicking Its Own
The Santa Clarita Valley Signal ran this illustration, which I doubt the Plano Chamber of Commerce will want to borrow for its promotional materials.
Santa Clarita, California, has in recent years been having trouble with heroin use among its young people. So the community’s newspaper, the Santa Clarita Valley Signal, turned to leaders in Plano to seek advice on how they beat their own well-documented teen heroin epidemic in the 1990s.
Plano Police Chief Gregory A. Rushin says it’s a never-ending fight:
“We haven’t scaled back at all,” Rushin said, adding every officer brought in and assigned to fight heroin remains committed to that fight 15 years later.
“We added numbers to that (heroin) unit, and we have not reduced any of those numbers,” he said.
“In this battle, we’ve seen no end in sight.”
Plano’s efforts were known as the awesomely named “Operation Rockfest,” because (one assumes) when you’re trying to connect with the kids to get them to stop doing illegal drugs you’ve got to talk to them on their level and some cops had heard that the rock music was popular with the kids.
Leading Off (1/23/11)
Why Did Police Officer Not Turn on Lights When Speeding? The police officer who struck and killed Beverly Kirk early Sunday morning was speeding, but the cruiser’s lights or sirens were not on. They should have been, because when another officer killed a 10-year-old boy in 2008 under similar circumstances, then-Chief David Kunkle made it policy that officers must turn on their lights and sirens when they are breaking traffic laws.
Dallas Economy Underperforms State Average: This story about the Dallas Fed’s report on the Texas economy is behind the paywall, but this scribd.com link should get you to the meat. The takeaway, Houston boasts the state’s strongest economy, thanks to a healthy energy market, while DFW (Dallas/ Fort Worth-Arlington) has underperformed the state average over the past five years.
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Second Best: That’s right, according to some guy at CNBC, the Super Bowl-bound Patriots have better cheerleaders than the team that introduced the sideline gimmick. What’s wrong with our ladies? Well, not allowing the cheerleaders to have their own social media accounts doesn’t help.
Why Twitter Is Awesome: The Little Elm Riots Edition
My granny used to say that nothing good happens after 10 p.m. Clearly, she may have a point, for at 10:01 PM, I see this from @DFWScanner, a Twitter account I follow for my own amusement, because it is much quieter than an actual scanner (although I have an iPhone App that gets me just about every scanner frequency, too):
Riot – Little Elm PD working a riot at McDonald’s, 2670 FM 423. Reports of 100+ people fighting in the dining room of the restaurant.
It was apparently calmed not long after. I have a call in to the Little Elm police to see what exactly started such a large fight, but in the meantime – any guesses?
Pro-Tip of the Day: Stopping a Beer Thief
When fighting off a beer thief hellbent on absconding with the frosty libations your employer has available for purchase, go for the glass eye.
Burglar Allegedly Calls Victim’s Girlfriend to Let Her Know What He’s Stealing
God bless Dentonites. From a burglary report in the Record-Chronicle:
The victim’s girlfriend told police she’d received a call Saturday night from the suspect, who said he was inside the apartment and wanted to know where the victim kept his cash, according to the police report. The suspect then listed off the items he and an accomplice were taking, including cash, a laptop computer, knives and an iPod, according to the woman’s account to police.
She said the accomplice sent her photographs of the stolen items and of damages they caused to the apartment, but she could not produce the images to the officer because she deleted them, according to the police report.
The suspect says the victim is “always making things up.”
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