Here’s a running list of my best Dallas Morning News stories

June 12, 2018 Leave a comment

I started at The Dallas Morning News in February 2015. I began on the cops beat, covering the Dallas Police Department. In February 2016, I was moved to cover Dallas County government, the jail, North Texas’ largest public hospital and the juvenile detention center. In April 2018, I was promoted to be an enterprise/ investigative reporter, focusing on big stories with impact.

It’s hard to find time to keep this website updated. You can read all my published stories at my author page here. Here are some stories I’ve done in Dallas that I’m particularly proud of.

Profiles

How Police Chief David Brown’s entire life prepared him for the Dallas shootings

This story was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize, as it was included among The Dallas Morning News’ entry for the breaking news category.

‘Too controversial’ for Fox, Dallas’ Tomi Lahren may be Facebook’s most loved and hated woman

Lee Merritt, civil rights attorney on the rise, faces moment of reckoning

Before the trial of his life, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price isn’t worried

After Orlando, a Dallas drag queen looks out on her changed world

Investigations

Flooded Houston-area homeowners might have been spared ruin — but only if they read the fine print

Cruel and unusual: Dallas County teen inmates locked indoors for months

How dozens in southern Dallas were swindled out of homes — under the government’s nose

White, straight and Christian: Dallas County politician admits rewarding his kids if they marry within race

The suburbs are booming, but their uninsured increasingly burden Dallas County taxpayers

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins interfered in major deal on behalf of local firms, colleagues allege

A taxing problem: Dallas property taxes squeeze middle class while wealthy, businesses reap advantages

Guards watched football, played on phones while youths in Dallas County lockup had sex

Features

Inside NRA TV, where the gun rights group spreads alarm and keeps lawmakers in line

Compassionate use: When the one drug that can protect your child could put you in jail

In rural Dallas County where there’s no running water, a clash over the role of government

‘Goodbye to the girl I used to be’

In Baton Rouge, Dallas officers soldier on to honor brothers in blue

Victim in Garland terror attack tormented by belief FBI knew of ISIS plot

The case of the missing ‘Queen of Oak Lawn’

Commentary

Why US politics keeps my grandma, a Holocaust survivor, up at night

I lost any sense of journalistic detachment when Patti Stevens mentioned me in her suicide note

Young women like me have a word to describe what dating can be like now — rapey

What I learned from getting kicked out of a police gathering in Baton Rouge

Filed under Features, My thoughts, News, Profiles

Trust key ingredient to fighting local crime

June 27, 2012 Leave a comment

This news analysis ran on the Opinion page of The Advocate on June 27, 2012. View the page here. Or, on The Advocate’s website here. 

In an unlikely partnership, residents of the city’s crime-plagued 70805 ZIP code, many of whom have long distrusted the Baton Rouge Police Department, are now saying they are ready to help the department in its new efforts to fight violent crime in their neighborhood.

The north Baton Rouge ZIP code area accounts for 30 percent of the city’s homicides but only 13 percent of its population.

The success of the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination program, or BRAVE, hinges on the ability of the BRAVE unit — made up of five elite officers — to build trust with the community’s law-abiding residents, who are often too afraid to report criminal activity out of fear of retaliation, said Lt. Todd Lee, who helped draft the plan.

Read more of this post

Filed under My thoughts, The Advocate

Challenge to DA over juvenile’s transfer to adult court could break ground

March 21, 2012 Leave a comment

This news analysis piece was published on the Opinion page of The Advocate on March 21. View the page here.  Or, on the website here.

District Attorney Hillar Moore III said he plans to fight a motion challenging his decision to transfer a juvenile defendant to adult court — an issue that might make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case involves Tyler Coleman, the 16-year-old boy accused of shooting and, officials say, paralyzing Metro Councilman Chandler Loupe’s son.

Moore, like all Louisiana district attorneys, has been largely unchallenged when he has decided to move any 14-, 15- or 16-year-old charged with a serious violent crime to adult court, with no need for a hearing on the issue first. Read more of this post

Filed under My thoughts, The Advocate

How I like my news

June 23, 2010 Leave a comment

This blog post was published on USA TODAY Social Media on June 23, 2010.

As a 20 year old college student, I am seeing a growing disparity between the way traditional newspapers put out their news, and the way my generation—once referred to as the ADD Generation—likes our news.

While there is definitely some truth to the “ADD” label, I prefer the more general term, the “Millennial Generation.” The “Millennial Generation” refers to those of us born in the 80’s and 90’s. We are the largest generation in history—bigger than the Baby Boomers—as well as the most educated, yet least employed. Read more of this post

Filed under My thoughts

How I use my cell phone

June 8, 2010 Leave a comment

This blog post was published on USA TODAY Social Media on July 12, 2010.

I was fourteen when I got my first cell phone. It was huge, had a bright green Celtics case, the Snake game, and t9 texting—by far its most exciting feature.

Since getting our first cell phones, my friends and I have spent the last decade or so evolving into adults, with these evolving devices always at our sides. In fact, most of us would agree that by this point, our “cellies” have become something like another bodily appendage, ones we simply can’t live without. Read more of this post

Filed under My thoughts