Leading Off (7/25/11)

Shooting in Grand Prairie A Grisly Tale of Domestic Violence: There’s more than enough to read about the senseless shooting over the weekend at a Grand Prairie roller rink. The Morning News’ (sub. req.) describes gunman Tan Do as “too calm” before he opened fired on his wife and four of her family members. The Star-Telegram reports that Tan Do’s wife had filed a protective order against her husband last December because he threatened her with a gun three times. Trini Do also filed for divorce before withdrawing the request. And while the Grand Prairie nightmare dominates the headlines, this piece (sub. req.) reminds us that under the radar domestic violence incidents occur at an alarming rate: three per hour in North Texas, according to police reports.

A Decade Later, Have TAKS Tests Worked? Texas education officials point to a steady increase in student performance on TAKS exams since they were introduced ten years ago, but national exams indicate that TAKS didn’t produce any real educational gains. “In some categories, the performance of Texas students has remained absolutely flat as TAKS scores climbed.”

Warren Leslie, Writer Who Implicated Dallas In Kennedy Guilt, Dies: Warren Leslie was a Dallas Morning News reporter who later was spokesman for Neiman Marcus, a job he held when he wrote Dallas Public and Private: Aspects of an American City, which, four months after the Kennedy assassination, implicated the city in those terrible events. From the book:

“They feel their worst enemies are other Americans who disagree with them. They are not equipped to deal with contradictory evidence; when it appears, they boo it and hiss it to make it go away.”

Do these words still accurately describe our city — or did they ever?