Author: Team OSD

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Follow Up: Dallas Police Officer Charged With Child Sexual Exploitation

A Dallas Police Officer Charged With Child Sexual Exploitation by the US Attorney for Northern Texas. Officer Daniel Collins has been charged with uploading sexually explicit images of children using the City of Dallas’ employee internet, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox.

Child Sexual Exploitation

As we reported previously, Daniel Lee Collins, a 35-year-old senior corporal assigned to DPD’s Auto Theft Unit, was charged via criminal complaint with one count of transportation of child pornography.

“Law enforcement officers take an oath to protect and serve,” said U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox. “This defendant allegedly undermined that vow, preying upon our most vulnerable. The Department of Justice will not tolerate the exploitation of children – especially by our public servants.”

A complaint is merely an allegation of criminal conduct, not evidence. Like all defendants, Mr. Collins – who has been placed on administrative leave by the police department pending the results of an internal investigation – is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Child Sexual Exploitation Case

According to court documents, Mr. Collins allegedly uploaded sexually explicit photos of prepubescent girls to his various Google accounts via the City of Dallas’ internet network.

Google flagged the images – one uploaded on May 13 to an account tagged “Dan Collins” and two more uploaded on June 29 to an account tagged “John Smith” –  to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which filed a Cyber Tipline report with the Dallas Police Department. In the report, they noted that one of the profiles included a photo of a man in a police uniform, later determined to be Mr. Collins.

A Dallas IT specialist traced the IP addresses used for the uploads to the City of Dallas internet network. Investigators determined that the same Google accounts were also accessed from Mr. Collin’s residence.

In an interview with federal agents, Mr. Collins allegedly admitted to accessing the Google accounts and saving child pornography.

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Homeland Security Investigations’ Dallas Field Office conducted the investigation with the assistance of the Dallas Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Saleem is prosecuting the case.

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DPA President Mata Cleared

DPA President Mata has been cleared by a grand jury. They have decided not to indict Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata on a charge of tampering with evidence in the September 2018 Botham Jean murder investigation.

DPA President Mata

DPA President Mata and The Botham Jean/Amanda Guyger Case

The issue in question related to Mata’s actions during the investigation of the Botham Jean murder. Immediately after the shooting, Mata asked that a dash cam be turned off while talking to then-Officer Amber Guyger in a patrol car outside the apartment where it happened.

Mata attorney Robert Rodgers said in a statement, “It is a tremendous relief that things like the constitution, law and facts still matter. Mike Mata  did absolutely nothing wrong in protecting an officer’s rights.”

During the Amber Guyger murder trial, prosecutors used security camera video to suggest the Dallas Police Association acted improperly when Mata arrived on the scene after the shooting. He is seen leaning into a patrol car Guyger was sitting in the back of and told another officer to turn off a dash cam while Guyger was on the phone with her attorney.

The Texas Fraternal Order Of Police President Steve Stribley said in a statement back in October 2019, they support Mata, saying he responded to the Guyger shooting in his capacity as President of the Dallas Police Association and he had a legal responsibility to request recording devices in a squad car to be turned off as Guyger was going to talk to her attorney on the phone.

The DPA website has no comments on the Mata matter or other recent stories about Lieutenant Brian William Deininger or Senior Corporal Daniel Collins.

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STAAR Scheduled, Meaningless, Not Forgotten

The STAAR scheduled tests are on for the 20-21 school year, but Governor Greg Abbott announced that the grade promotion requirement related to the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test has been waived. This waiver for tests gives to fifth and eighth graders is only for the upcoming school year.

Typically, school systems must take into account a student’s score on the STAAR test to determine whether the student can be promoted to the next grade level. The traditional A-F rating system will remain in place, albeit with certain adjustments due to COVID19.

STAAR Scheduled, Meaningless, Not Forgotten

Students enrolled in grades 5 and 8 are required to re-take a STAAR test late in the school year, and sometimes again in the summer, if they do not meet grade level when taken during the spring. With this waiver, there will only be one administration of the STAAR grades 5 and 8 mathematics and reading assessments for the 2020–21 school year. The test will be administered in May to coincide with the administration of other STAAR grades 3-8 assessments.

“As always, our goal is to provide a high quality education for every Texas student,” said Governor Abbott. “This will be a uniquely challenging school year, therefore, this year is about providing students every opportunity to overcome the disruptions caused by COVID-19. By waiving these promotion requirements, we are providing greater flexibility for students and teachers, while at the same time ensuring that Texas students continue to receive a great education — which we will continue to measure with high quality assessments.”

Some will argue with Abbott’s assertion that STAAR provides a “high quality assessment.” There are vast differences between scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test and the Texas STAAR testing bringing into question the test’s overall reliability and validity.

“Parents deserve to know how well their children have learned grade level knowledge and skills in reading and math, especially in a time when education has been substantially disrupted,” said Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath. “And educators use this valuable information to make adjustments to support students the following year. But there is no benefit to our children by requiring them to repeat a year based on a single test score given the disruptions of COVID, so we are waiving the grade promotion requirements from STAAR this year for our students.”

If the test can be exempted in the 2020-2021 school year the natural follow up question is why not do away with it altogether as a promotion mechanism? Governor Abbott and Mike Morath seem to want it both ways – they want the expensive test – but are not using its findings due to the “challenging school year.”

The new standard may offer Dallas ISD Calendar some added flexibility if the focus is not on high stakes testing. Locally though it brings into question, the Dallas Texas Excellence Initiative which ties teacher salaries to test scores in part.

Lori Kirkpatrick has several webpages about TEI on her website which may provide useful information opposing Dallas ISD’s viewpoint.

STAAR Scheduled Dates

STAAR Testing Dates

All of the information on STAAR Testing dates is available via the Texas Education Agency website or below.

STAAR Calendar UpdatedDownload
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Opening Day Warning: Baseball Brushback For COVID19 Classrooms?

An Opening Day warning for schools? Tonight’s Baltimore versus Miami Opening Day game for the Miami Marlins has been cancelled. How does this relate to the Dallas ISD Calendar? Quarantine cleaning.

This weekend fourteen players and two coaches from the Miami Marlins developed positive tests for COVID19 while playing in Philadelphia. If sixteen adults out of forty can get COVID19 while sequestered from other community members after testing negative prior to the series there is either a cleaning issue or community spread.

While possible, the former seems unlikely, as Major League Baseball is performing daily COVID19 screenings and has access to the best envornmental cleaning companies in the world. That would leave community spread as the primary culprit due to a person or persons not adhering to the strict guidelines for maintaining social distancing and these are adults. How will schools mandate safe practices of children?

As we have noted, COVID19 cases are surging, but Dallas ISD Trustees seem confident that they have the answers with their latest schedule.

Opening Day Warning For Schools

While the Dallas ISD Calendar is currently ready to go for the 20-21 school year, administration has also put out guidelines for entrance into schools on a daily basis.

DISD Arrival Instructions To Avoid Opening Day Warnings

Some school observers have questioned whether or not this is realistic and will remain reality once the school year begins.

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DPD = Drinking Performing Duties?

Are Dallas Police Department (DPD) officers drinking performing duties? Several have voiced confusion by the DPD response to the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge incident and the decision making that followed.

There are currently multiple accounts of what happened on the bridge from Chief Hall’s statements at the time, City Council Members who have backed her account, and citizen protestors who suffered the attack. A question exists about decision making and who had authority to make decisions. This includes why Lt. Brian Payne, an officer previously arrested in Ft. Worth for a road rage incident, was in charge of arrests on the bridge that night.

Another, bigger, question though is why is does this poor decision making continue to pervade the City of Dallas and its police department. Example? Lieutenant Brian William Deininger.

Deininger is currently assigned to teach the Standard Field Sobriety Testing program at the Dallas Police Department Academy. The problem with that is he was found unresponsive in his vehicle less than a year ago with multiple open containers of beer, not remembering how he got there, and denying medical any relevant medical history.

Granted mistakes happen to all of us and persons are innocent until convicted, but aren’t officers supposed to be held to a higher standard given the position they are placed in daily?

According to one police officer we spoke with, Deininger is an example of the problems with DPD right now.

DPD requires you, as a Dallas Police Officer, to be cooperative in any investigation by any other agency, especially if you’re a suspect. While Irving Police Department may have been doing him a favor or “helping him out” as this commander suggests by charging him with Public Intoxication and not Driving While Intoxicated, it is clear Deininger was not fully cooperative.

The officer continues “Brian is most certainly asking for preferential treatment when they’re asking him to preform SFST’s. Since he refused and it’s on camera that he refused he should have been terminated.” It is unclear why the Internal Affairs Division did not take further action, but both officers and suspects have complained about the IAD complaint process.

DPD Officer Brian Deininger

After watching the video, it seems clear Deininger is asking for preferential treatment saying he would handle it any way the officer wanted to handle it. He knows the procedure that should be followed – though he may have been too intoxicated to follow it.

DPD Lt. Brian Deininger

This was not Deininger’s first brush with other law enforcement though. In 2011 he was a suspect in a domestic violence case. It is unclear if Dallas’ thin blue line assisted in the choking case in the 2800 block of McKinney Avenue, but charges were dropped when the victim chose not to press charges – common in domestic violence cases.

The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge incident may seem like an isolated case, but it appears DPD has an ongoing problem both recruiting officers and maintaining their understanding of laws and regulations that apply to them. They clearly can pass tests administered by the state, but can they follow common sense and make good decisions while on the beat?

The George Floyd Protests are exposing issues not only in May and June 2020, but a longer record of problems within the department that go beyond a singular event or police chief. The question is will Reneé Hall stay defensive about her command tenure or will she work to correct these problems that are evident for everyone to see.

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Extended 20-21 School Year Proposed

The 20-21 school year is about to get longer per reports. The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) school board will vote Thursday on a new Dallas ISD calendar that could push the end of the school year to mid-June.

Under the proposal, classes would begin three weeks later than scheduled on September 8. And the last day of school would move back three weeks as well — from May 28 to June 18.

The DISD plans to release a detailed back-to-school plan this week. It will include the precautions the district plans to take when students return to campus, but that may not be enough for some campus educators.

Current 20-21 School Year Proposal for Dallas ISD Calendar

“I have kidney disease and I have a breathing condition, asthma…” said educator Ronny Swank.

A military veteran who teaches middle school, Swank said his dream is to be back in the classroom. “But, I’m so scared, sir, to go back under bad conditions,” he said. “I made my wife a promise that when I walk in that classroom, if I don’t feel safe, I am simply going to walk out.”

20-21 School Year

The current calendar has school opening August 17, but a Dallas ISD Trustees meeting Thursday will decide if the open will be moved back past Labor Day, September 8.

News reports have Superintendent Michael Hinojosa anticipating all campuses re-opened on that date with teachers on campus “unless the situation keeps getting worse.” Given Texas Education Agency statements funding for pupil attendance this may be related to both annual school funding and the push for the 2020 bond package.

Michael Hinojosa Plans For On Campus Learning At Start Of 20-21 School Year
Michael Hinojosa Plans For On Campus Learning At Start Of 20-21 School Year

He was one of the primary voices that kept schools from closing in the spring until the middle of Spring Break which resulted in a handful of COVID19 infections being passed at the school level.

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Hot Zone: Dallas Health In Danger Due To COVID19

Dallas is a medical hot zone. That is per a White House report obtained by Center for Public Integrity which says Texas should continue to mandate masks, keep bars closed, decrease indoor dining to 25% capacity and limit social gatherings to 10 people or fewer in counties with rising COVID-19 positivity rates.

The report dated July 14 shows eighteen states currently in what the task force calls the “red zone” for cases. This means there were more than 100 new COVID-19 cases for every 100,000 people in a given state during the second week in July. 

Eleven states are in that same “red zone” for test positivity, the level a state reaches when higher than 10% of those getting tested are testing positive. Texas is in both. 

Dallas Texas Is a Hot Zone

Ten total states across the country are in both “red zones,” mainly across the south. They include:

  • Alabama
  • Arizona
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Idaho
  • Louisiana
  • Mississippi
  • Nevada
  • South Carolina
  • Texas

In the week before July 14, Texas was reporting nearly double the number of new cases compared to the national average, at 206 new cases to the U.S.’s 119 per 100,000 people. The state’s positivity rate for the same week was 20.6%, according to the report. Additionally, cases were starting in child care settings.

Over the course of the three weeks before July 14, Harris, Dallas and Bexar counties had the highest number of new cases out of the state’s 254 counties, with the three accounting for 35% of the total new cases in Texas, the report shows. 

“Hot Zone” counties

Nearly half of Texas’ counties are in both of the “red zones”—  123 out of Texas’ 254. 

The top 12 counties in the “red zone,” ranked by the highest number of cases in the past three weeks, were:

  1. Harris
  2. Dallas
  3. Bexar
  4. Travis
  5. Tarrant 
  6. Hidalgo
  7. Nueces
  8. El Paso
  9. Galveston
  10. Williamson
  11. Lubbock
  12. McLennan
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Kirkpatrick Calls For Dallas Morning News Name Change

Lori Kirkpatrick called out the Dallas Morning News for its most recent editorial attacking Maxie Johnson (District 5) and Joyce Foreman (District 6) over Southern Sector Charter schools.

The former Dallas Independent School District Trustee candidate wrote:

When I read the DMN editorial last Thursday More charter school opposition in southern Dallas I wanted to call the paper and ask, “Does DMN even read the press releases from the Texas Charter Schools Association before printing them in the editorial page?”

https://www.kirkpatrick4disd.com/
Lori Kirkpatrick Attacks Dallas Morning News Attack Editorial

The Dallas Morning News editorial appears to be the latest in a multiprong approach to divide Black voters prior to the Bond 2020 vote which loses financial support through expansion of another unsuccessful KIPP charter school down the street from a more successful Dallas ISD program.

It is becoming clear that officials are concerned about the local economy and are attempting to make sure they are successful with issuing bonds after this November Bond 2020 election. Original estimates were for a $7B bond package that has been pared down to $3.1B, but that may still be high will unclear state funding and a possible mass exodus of students.

Lori Kirkpatrick

Lori Kirkpatrick was a candidate for District 2 representative on the Dallas Independent School District school board in Texas. Kirkpatrick was defeated in the runoff election on June 10, 2017.

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School Election Equity or School Election Lies?

The school election coming up for the Dallas ISD bond is sure to be a major issue on the November ballot. Dallas ISD leadership is sparing no expense to make sure they come out on top of a shaky financial vote.

Dallas ISD’s Racial Equity Office (REO) recently tweeted and put up a page saying they want to “ensure the district’s Bond 2020 plan includes help for neighborhoods most impacted by poverty and economic disinvestment.” If this sounds familiar, it should. It is the same old tune they play every time they come to taxpayers for money.

School Election Upcoming Includes Call For New Bond

Dallas ISD’s Racial Equity Office team is conducting a series of community conversations to collect input from neighborhood residents on the design of four student and family resource centers, i.e. they are selling a product that voters are not even funding yet in hopes of getting your credit card number in the November election.

If voters approve, the resource centers will be constructed with a portion of the district’s proposed Bond 2020 funds. They would be located in neighborhoods served by H. Grady Spruce, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and L.G. Pinkston high schools–four areas of the city long affected by historical redlining, segregation and economic disinvestment. 

Residents are urged to attend the meetings to suggest ideas and offer input about the resource centers. They are also asked to discuss potential social services that might be offered.

Dallas ISD claims their goal is to improve student academic achievement and increase opportunities for student success – but that would seem to start in the classroom which is getting short changed by this bond. Additionally, Dallas ISD has previously not fulfilled its previous bond packages in the same way advertised.

As we wrote last week, Dallas ISD is full speed ahead on Bond 2020 and a financial package that may be very hard to support with unknown state resources and a local impact of COVID19 not fully realized. There are also no clear answers to questions raised by the former Dallas ISD Chief Internal Auditor about previous bond questions.

School Election

The Dallas ISD Calendar includes a call for the local election on November 3, 2020. It was originally scheduled for May 22, but was delayed due to COVID19.

Voters will have the chance to vote on Trustees in Districts 2, 6, and 8.

Citizens can register to vote or check their registration status through Dallas County Elections.

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Bond 2020 Virtual Town Hall

A Bond 2020 virtual Town Hall will be held July 21st at 6:00 PM for citizens to hear about the Dallas ISD Bond proposal.

Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa will lead the virtual community meeting to provide updates about projects included in the district’s Bond 2020 proposal.

Bond 2020 Virtual Meeting Scheduled for July 21

Underlying Bond 2020 Issues

Given rising cases of childcare facility infected children and a ping pong strategy from the Texas Education Agency on the COVID19 response, it is unclear how full Dallas ISD budget coffers will be for next year’s budget and bond support.

Additionally, no public announcements have occured on reports about the Auditor scandal from late in last year’s school year. Some citizens may have forgotten the scandal from the fall of 2019 into February 2020, but without answers, the bond package may face an uphill climb to voter approval.

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