18-Year-Old Dies After Being Shot at South Oak Cliff-Kimball Basketball Game. The kid I mentioned last week that had been shot and wounded at the SOC-Kimball game? His name was Marc Strickland, and he passed away Saturday after being taken off life support. The 15-year-old who turned himself in for the shooting now faces a murder charge.

Women’s March Honors 100th Anniversary of 19th Amendment. But, of course, it also had more than a little to do with the President.

Here is the Winner of the 28th Annual MLK Jr. Oratory Competition. His name is Colin Harris, he’s a fifth grader at J.P. Starks Math, Science and Technology Vanguard, and he is fantastic.

We have a quick campaign finance update for you on this foggy Friday. Democrats are pushing to flip the Texas House blue in 2020, but so far, financing is largely favoring incumbents, the Texas Tribune reports. That holds true for the two remaining Dallas County Republicans who currently have seats in the House.

In the closely watched race for Texas House District 108, which runs from downtown and east Dallas through the Park Cities and North Dallas, Rep. Morgan Meyer pulled in $322,000. That’s a chunk. Democrats are licking their chops in that race after Meyer squeaked out a victory by 200 votes in 2018. Based on funding, his likely 2020 challenger (primaries are in March) is Shawn Terry, of Uptown, who might’ve scared some donors into action with $236,000 last period. Terry put together $153,000 this go around.

And in Garland and Richardson’s District 112, state Rep. Angie Chen Button pulled $275,000 (she also has a pile of $772,000 on hand). She dwarfed the returns of challenging Democrat Brandy Chambers. Chambers, whom Button beat with 51.1 percent of the vote in 2018, hauled in $87,000.

Back in June, Tim told you that noted bear hunter and Donald Trump Jr. buddy Gentry Beach won part of a $90 million payout over bonuses he alleged he was owed while working for a hedge fund. Fast forward to two days ago, and The Wall Street Journal reports that the Highland Park High School grad’s big payout will have to wait. A New York appeals court vacated the judgment, sending it back down for another trial.

The lawsuit was filed back in 2009. The four-judge panel found that a specific defense should have been allowed in the original trial, which that judge had precluded. In doing so, the court ruled that it “deprived them of a fair trial.” Beach and a former colleague allege that they’re owed net profits from a hedge fund where they worked from 2005 to 2008.

They’ll have to try again to prove it.

Projects and trends to keep an eye on as we enter a new decade.

In 2018, U.S. District Judge David Godbey ruled that the county had to dismantle its assembly-line bail system. He found that poor people accused of committing nonviolent crimes were stuck in jail because they couldn’t afford to post bail. Among criminal justice reformers, hopes were high. But now, a year and a half later, bail reform in Dallas County is murky at best. The court battle is ongoing, and a lack of communication among its major players has spurred confusion and piecemeal adoption across the criminal courts.

The confusion around executing these reforms has even leaked out of the Frank Crowley Courts Building. Just look at the Dallas Morning News’ editorial board. Two Sundays ago, the voice of the paper printed flimsy conclusions based around an opinion piece written by U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox, which was also published by the paper. Nealy Cox lists instances in which offenders with violent histories have been released from jail on bond, only to reoffend. But the edit board paints in broader strokes, claiming that bail reform “drives toward the uncritical release, on outrageously low bonds, of people accused of violent crimes who have a history of violent behavior.” It blames District Attorney John Creuzot, a Democrat who has advocated for reforming the bail system to make it more equitable to the poor.

That editorial is inaccurate. It suggests we have true bail reform in Dallas County. We don’t. It insinuates Creuzot’s wish-list reforms are in place. For the most part, they aren’t. It also conflates a violent offender with the type of defendant bail reform is targeted at: poor people who are accused of a nonviolent offense, whose lives are upended because they don’t have money to post bond.

Arraignments in Dallas County have traditionally worked like this: about 20 defendants sit before a magistrate. Their charges are read one by one, and bail is determined by a schedule that associates a price with the crime. The individual’s ability to pay is not taken into consideration. They have no representation, and because there are no defense attorneys present, prosecutors cannot be either. According to figures provided by the ACLU at the time of the lawsuit, as many as 70 percent of the 5,000 inmates in the Dallas County Jail are only there because they cannot afford to post bail.

The Rain Won’t Be So Bad By the Time You Read This. But it’s coming. That’s from WFAA. Be careful clicking that link, the video starts immediately and froze my browser. Also there are some weird ads in the middle of what you want, which is the news: it’s probably going to drizzle today, then it’s going to get colder. So you should wear a jacket and bring a light umbrella just in case. Saturday should be dry and in the mid-50s for most of it.

Joe Biden Came To Dallas. Former Mayor Mike Rawlings hosted a fundraiser for the former vice president, who says he’s the guy to turn Texas blue. Gromer Jeffers reported that about 140 people attended the fundraiser at Rawlings’ home.

Teacher’s Group Sues Over DISD’s Merit-Based System. The Teacher’s Excellence Initiative, or TEI, pays some teachers more than others based on outcomes for state tests. Other teachers say this resulted in a pay cut and is unfair, particularly because of the increase in healthcare costs. The district’s superintendent defends this process, arguing, in part, that no teacher has been paid less.

Apparently There Is More Graffiti? Oh, NBC5 and others, get over it.