Another Night of Unrest in North Texas, Mass Arrests on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. Last night I was glued to Channel 8, mostly because Rebecca Lopez is one of the best cops reporters in town. She stood on the street near the county jail, bathed in red and blue flashing lights, relaying what her Dallas Police Department sources could tell her — and waylaying County Judge Clay Jenkins as he walked by. Here’s the DMN’s account. Here’s the Observer’s reporting, which says cops fired rubber bullets, even though Lopez told us that DPD doesn’t use rubber bullets (they use some sort of sponge projectile).
The Gist. After a peaceful demonstration outside the Frank Crowley courthouse and county jail, protestors began marching across the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, headed toward Trinity Groves. DPD cops and DPS officers trapped them on the bridge and started zip-tying their wrists. It looked like hundreds of people were headed to jail. But then police changed their minds and instead bused the protestors back to the jail and let them go. It was so chaotic that Channel 8 put Central Track founder Pete Freedman on the air for an interview via phone. Freedman was on the bridge. (He did a great job.) Lopez remarked several times that the DPD appeared in disarray and was demonstrating a lack of leadership, likely because it has recently lost so many experienced officers at the top of the organization.
Meanwhile, DPD Investigates Use of Force. On Sunday, two people downtown were injured badly enough by police that they had to hospitalized and undergo surgery. Internal Affairs is investigating.
And K-Pop Fans Crashed the DPD’s Crime Reporting App. DPD has an app called iWatch that lets citizens report crimes. When the department asked on Twitter for people to upload to the app videos of protestors breaking the law, K-pop fans went to work, crashing the app and overwhelming the DPD’s Twitter feed.
