Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Stories behind the story

Maybe I'm just getting old but sometimes I really do think Dallas is going to hell. Yesterday's triple homicide offers some confirmation: "a man stood up through the sunroof of the Jaguar with a high-powered rifle...and opened fire on the other car." Talk about painting a picture with words.

The shooting apparently resulted from a bar fight. The bar, Jack's Pub, was the site of 125 police calls last year. "In comparison, the Across the Street Bar, across from Jack's Pub, had one offense report in 2004...A northwest Dallas business that city attorneys sued over security problems – Club DMX on Spangler Road – had 86 incident reports."

That's quite a revelation by the Dallas Morning News. So why has the city let Jack's slide and did the News likewise ignore the problem? DMX is located in a no man's land west-side industrial park; Jack's is just off popular Greenville Avenue, across the highway from SMU and Highland Park. Going after DMX probably was easy pickin's for the city. But it made them look tough. Jack's would have been trickier. And it might have reminded slumbering North Dallas residents that crime really isn't limited to neighborhoods south of I-30.

Meanwhile, it's a good bet the killer is already in Mexico.

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