Articles about Police
Leading Off (5/16/11)
Brace Yourself For Five Exciting Bonus Weeks of Mayoral Campaigning: As expected, the dullest mayoral campaign in Dallas history is now even longer. The candidates are back on the trail. And yes, Tim’s string-pulling to make Rob (Ron) Natinsky the next mayor failed. The Dallas Morning News, however, is anointing Natinsky kingmaker (sorry Tim), but with his supporters wavering between concerns about Rawlings’ Democratic leanings and Kunkle’s marriage-happy life, my guess is they just forget to vote in the runoff.
Kidd Most Ironically-Named Player Left in Playoff Race: Yesterday, the OKC Thunder beat the Grizzlies to become the team that will lose to the Marvericks in the Western Conference Finals. If you need to get psyched up again for the playoffs, check out this New York Times feature on Jason Kidd’s quest to be the oldest point guard to win an NBA title in league history.
Handicaps Be Damned, Married Downs Couple Lives Out Normal Life: Grab the nearest hankie before you click through to this story about Austin Davenport and Christi Hockel, a married couple with Downs Syndrome living in East Dallas.
Wrong Way Parking Tickets Seem More Abundant
Does it seem like there are more tickets being handed out for parking on the “wrong side” of the street lately?
Dwaine Caraway’s Cop Car Confessional Released
At long last, below you will find the Dwaine Caraway audio (courtesy of our friends at the Observer). It’s interesting — but not in the way many of us expected it would be. Though he is foul-mouthed, Caraway is calm and collected as he explains to cops what went down in his house that night between him and wife. It really is easy to see where the guy is coming from. He’s trapped in his game room. His wife, state Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway, has a knife. How long can he remain trapped? He has to come out eventually. And when he does, he’ll have to protect himself. Someone will get hurt. The only course of action? Call the police to help diffuse the situation. Sure, I’m with him.
Except. But.
Are we really to believe that this whole thing started, as Caraway says, because his wife was throwing out some of his aprons and he asked her not to? Why did Barbara freak out so violently? Because, as Caraway says on the tape, she might have a chemical imbalance? Or because, as he says later, she can’t handle power?
Then there are the clothes strewn about the living room floor. Caraway mentions these to cops several times. He wants them to know that his house doesn’t normally look like that. He’s been organizing his closets, he says, and that’s why the suits and so forth are all over the place. Riiight. That’s usually what I do, too, when I have people over to watch football games. I take out all my clothes and spread them around the living room so my buddies can help me tidy up my closets during commercial breaks.
Dwaine Caraway is a liar. He’s been lying throughout this whole process. I feel for him on the marital discord stuff. He’s clearly got problems on the homefront. But he wasn’t telling the cops the truth about what, exactly, went down that night.
The question remains: what is Caraway trying to cover up?
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Leading Off (3/14/11)
Cuban Says He’s Close To Agreement Charlie Sheen, Joins “Shark Tank:” In this interview with the New York Post, Mark Cuban reveals that he is close to coming to an agreement with Charlie Sheen on a new HD Net show, will join the venture capitalist television show “Shark Tank,” and won’t likely buy the New York Mets.
Texas and California Have Similar Problems, Offer Different Solutions: Surprise, surprise: Texas and California are taking different approaches to similar budgetary crises. Perry boasts chides California for “high taxes, high regulation.” Californians retort: “Texas ranks 50th in adults with a high school diploma, fourth in the percentage of people living below the federal poverty level and first in the amount of toxic chemicals and carcinogens in the air and water.” But here’s the real difference: Gov. Perry carries a gun when he jogs; Gov. Jerry Brown of California once worked at a hospice run by Mother Teresa in Calcutta.
Despite Fears, St. Patrick’s Alcohol Crackdown Not Excessive: When the green dust cleared Saturday evening, police had issued 21 consuption citations, six tickets for public intoxication, and two DUIs. Not bad considering an estimated 100,000 people attended the event:
Officers appeared to be more occupied with crowd control than cracking down on people who were drinking alcohol in public — so long as they were not causing trouble.
FW Police Officer Kills SUV Driver After Being Dragged Two Blocks
With an adult passenger in the front seat and three children in the back seat, this could have gone seriously wrong. A Fort Worth officer was trying to arrest a driver on outstanding warrants when the car took off, dragging the officer with it. The officer drew his weapon and fired, killing the driver.
Kunkle and Dodd: How It All Began
It’s cold and icy outside. You’re likely stuck at home. So here’s a hot and steamy story from our January 2007 issue to warm your bones (not to mention the cockles of your heart). “The Police Chief and Reporter” reminds us how Sarah Dodd and David Kunkle initially got their groove on. Enjoy.
Facebook Post of the Day: Adam Pitluk
Adam is the executive editor of American Way magazine.
Court Monday: Me vs. State Trooper David Nerling, Bdg.#13024. Alleged Crime: Failure to signal lane change. NOTE TO NERLING: Too bad that I was an investigative reporter for 10 years. I FOIA’ed your dashcam video. My turn signal is oh so visible in the video. And the audio of you blasting Slayer during a traffic stop is oh so audible. BTW, it ain’t legal for a Trooper to play music while on duty. See you Monday!
Police Called Out for Traffic Mess on Strait Lane
A savvy shopping FB-er reports that police are turning people away from a mega-estate sale at 10647 Strait Lane. According to our turned-away-source:
“Apparently the organizers didn’t organize parking. The police officers are being very rude and claiming that no one can go because they’ll tow cars. The neighbors are complaining about the traffic, so they called the officers. It’s just a big mess.”
Well, at least the economy must be doing better — people are shopping.
Dwaine Caraway, Arthur, and Archie
I know Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway made his statement yesterday, admitted he lied to the DMN about why cops were called to his house, and said, “That’s the end of all of this with me. That’s my statement. There’s not going to be anything else. No more questions, no more nothing.” But I have a question. How do you diagram the following sentence, which came from his statement?
“Those of you in this audience that are married, those of you that are listening that are married, if you’ve not always wanted eggs and bacon and some of you may have wanted something else, but you didn’t get it and that’s just what marriage is all about.”
That’s the way marriage go?
Leading Off (1/10/11)
1. Dallas has increased police presence in public schools, and, lo and behold, that has resulted in a sharp increase (95 percent) in the number of tickets issued to students. Not sure what to say about this one, except that after reading this quote, I’m real happy I’m not in school anymore: “Disrupting class, using profanity, misbehaving on a school bus, student fights and truancy once meant a trip to the principal’s office. Today, such misbehavior results in a Class C misdemeanor ticket and a trip to court.”
2. Just remember: nothing happened. Sure, the police were called by council member Dwaine Caraway. But when the police arrived at the politician’s house, they found that “both the complainant and the wife [Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway] stated that they had had an argument and settled it.” That’s it. It was settled. It’s just a big misunderstanding between two elected officials that somehow ended up in the annals of the police reports. Pay no attention. Move on.
Man Sues Dallas County for Not Discovering He Lied
Meet Mario Miramontes. He’s had some run-ins with the law. Sometimes, that can be a real hassle, you know? So one day, when he got pulled over, he figured he’d use his cousin’s name, because his cousin was a straight arrow. A family man. A good guy with no record.
Only, this one time, Miramontes got pulled over and discovered the hard way that his cousin also had a warrant out for his arrest – for allegedly molesting a child. And now, in the byzantine computer system that Dallas County uses, the two names were linked – it was now known as Miramontes alias, not an entirely separate person whose identity he pilfered.
Still with me? Good, because this is where it gets weird. He spent a year in jail, all the while insisting that he was not actually who he said he was, and was just your garden-variety probation violator, not a child molester. His cousin even turned himself in and hired his own attorney. This, of course, resulted in the court-appointed attorney assigned to Miramontes being told to stand down, because in the records, Miramontes’ alias now had an attorney and didn’t need him.
Eventually, a photo array resulted in the victim confirming that Miramontes was not the perp. Well, not her perp, anyway. And he was released. But now he’s suing Dallas County, because the county didn’t figure out he lied sooner.
Leading Off (12/20/10)
1. The important takeaway from this report on the large raid on a cockfighting ring over the weekend: staging cockfights is illegal in Texas, but attending cockfights isn’t. Huh.
2. An armed standoff in the middle of the night between police and someone allegedly involved in a domestic dispute isn’t exactly far from normal. But my question: how did this person get into the basement of Iron Cactus downtown?
3. As the saying goes (or at least as someone once said to me): if you want to know the future of media today, look to Evangelical Christians and pornography. So what are the implications of this Grapevine megachurch having a 3-D Christmas service? I’m not sure. I hope it doesn’t mean more videos of preachers’ dogs eating Christmas presents, but it probably does.
Canadian Critic Thinks You Should Be Watching Police Women of Dallas
As you may or may not remember, we’ve spoken of this Police Women of Dallas show before. It’s on TLC. It features women who are officers of the law in Dallas.
Have you been watching it? Well, in Canada, one TV critic recommends the show to his fellow Canucks after one hellaciously long lede that I only half understand. But it has the word cojones in it, and I think it was even used properly, so there’s that.
But at any rate, he says he loves the show, and gives much love to one Officer Person, and marvels that with a last name like that, there was no choice but to become an officer of the law (”If you insist on going about with a name like that, you take refuge in employment with the police. It’s as plain as a poke in your eye.”).
But law, this review gave me hurty head.
Leading Off (11/15/10)
1. If I told you Southern Methodist University was the third best private university in the country you would probably raise an eyebrow. The university, however, does have the third highest-paid president of any private university in the country, according to a study that includes not only salaries, but other forms of compensation in its calculations.
2. An episode of teenage high romance ended so sadly and spectacularly Sunday morning, after a 14-year-old boy, along with his 14-year-old girlfriend and their 16-year-old friend, eased his parents’ SUV out of the driveway in neutral. They started the car in the street and pointed its bumper toward Oklahoma. They were running away, beginning a new life, and they celebrated (and, perhaps, bolstered) their boldness with beer, drinking while they ran. Then, the boy drove the car off the highway near Denton, killing his girl.
3. Dallas Police Officer Nick Novello told a Dallas Morning News reporter that he has no interest in climbing the ranks of local law enforcement. That’s probably a good quality for a local cop who is also the spokesperson for LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), hosting a seminar over the weekend in an unnamed Fort Worth location, advocating for the full legalization of marijuana. “We can survive addiction, but not conviction,” Novello said, arguing that even petty marijuana convictions can ruin lives. In related news, MADD is pushing for federal legislation that requires technology in all of our cars that senses alcohol and locks down the car if the driver registers as having consumed alcohol.
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