Dallas Police

The Los Angeles deputy police chief was selected today as the new Dallas police chief, replacing a man fired after he was indicted on a charge of perjury. Deputy Chief William Rathburn was among more than 100 candidates who applied for the job after the September firing of Chief Mack Vines by City Manager Jan Hart. Vines was indicted for allegedly lying to a special panel investigating a police shooting. Rathburn was chief of security for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Over the last three years, police in Dallas have ticketed 39 drivers for not speaking English, even though there is no law requiring drivers be able to do so. Amid growing public anger, Police Chief David Kunkle announced last week that the citations would be thrown out and that the officers who issued them would be investigated. The cases came to light when a Mexican immigrant, Ernestina Mondragon, went to the media saying that she had been cited for being a "non-English-speaking driver" during a routine traffic stop.

Assistant San Diego Police Chief Norm Stamper said Friday he has taken himself out of the running for chief of the Dallas Police Department because the San Diego department "is where I want to stay." Stamper and Deputy Chief Manny Guaderrama were two of 13 semi-finalists for the job, according to a list released Dec. 21 by the city of Dallas. Guaderrama could not be reached for comment Friday. Stamper said he met Dec.

A casket minus a cadaver yielded nearly 100 pounds of marijuana after a traffic stop in Dallas. William Dale Crock of Cave City, Ark., was in jail on a marijuana possession charge, plus traffic and seat belt violations. Dallas police say Crock was arrested Wednesday when bundles of marijuana were discovered inside a casket. Police stopped a van in Mesquite after noticing Crock not wearing a seat belt. A drug-sniffing dog alerted officers to the casket in the van.

Over the last three years, police in Dallas have ticketed 39 drivers for not speaking English, even though there is no law requiring drivers be able to do so. Amid growing public anger, Police Chief David Kunkle announced last week that the citations would be thrown out and that the officers who issued them would be investigated. The cases came to light when a Mexican immigrant, Ernestina Mondragon, went to the media saying that she had been cited for being a "non-English-speaking driver" during a routine traffic stop.

Vernon Smith, 33, Texas A&M's career scorer and rebounding leader, was shot to death by a man who apparently mistook him for someone he had fought with earlier, Dallas police said.

Los Angeles police interviews with a Dallas man led to the discovery Wednesday of his wife's decomposing body in Texas, authorities said Wednesday. The husband, Scott Behling, 38, had been arrested Tuesday in the parking lot of the Town House Motel at 6957 N. Sepulveda Blvd. in Van Nuys, police said. The decomposed body of his wife, Carolyn, who Texas authorities said appeared to have been shot, was found in a wooded area near the landscaping company in Dallas where the husband once worked.

A former Utah state trooper suspected in several roadway shootings has died, a hospital official said. Brian Smith died Wednesday night at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, nursing supervisor Arthur Clarke said. Smith, 37, had been in critical condition and on life support from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police say he shot himself in the head after a brief standoff early Tuesday, more than six hours after the Dallas-area shootings.

A police officer in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's motorcade was killed in a motorcycle accident Friday morning on the way to a campaign rally, authorities said. The officer was identified as Senior Cpl. Victor Lozada-Tirado, who died after apparently crashing into a concrete barrier, Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle said in a televised news conference. "Officer Lozada was very, very well respected. He had been here a long time and had touched a lot of people," Kunkle said.

A man squeezed through the sunroof of a Jaguar early Tuesday and opened fire with an assault rifle on another moving vehicle, killing three men and critically wounding a fourth, police said. Authorities were searching for the gunman and two others who might have been riding in the light-colored Jaguar with fancy wheels, police said. University Park Police Capt. Robert Brown said the shooting could have stemmed from a scuffle at a bar earlier.

About 50 protesters upset over the firing of Dallas' first black police chief marched to City Hall and demanded the removal of the mayor and city manager. Some in the crowd shouted "Amen" as rally organizer Darren Reagan listed demands, including the recall of Mayor Laura Miller and the removal of City Manager Ted Benavides. The protesters accuse the two of orchestrating the dismissal of Chief Terrell Bolton.

Four teenagers claiming to be vampires went on a drug-crazed rampage, vandalizing dozens of cars and homes, spray-painting racial slurs and burning a church, police said. Fascinated by the occult, the teens smoked methamphetamine-laced marijuana before going on a spree through the quiet middle-class neighborhood and causing $300,000 in damage Thursday, officers said. The fire destroyed the office and fellowship hall at Bethany Lutheran Church.

A few weeks ago, a young woman and her attorney called the sports department of The Washington Post. From a maternity ward. The baby barely delivered, they were calling to announce that a very famous professional athlete had fathered the newborn. And why exactly were they calling the newspaper? "To get some pub." And getting some pub, as in publicity, was the first step in "getting paid." Well, in this case we gave no pub.

Dallas police, for the second year in a row, rank No. 1 on a per capita basis among the 11 largest cities nationwide in the use of deadly force, a newspaper survey indicated. Dallas police shot and killed 10 people in 1986 and wounded 19 others. In 1985, Dallas officers killed nine people and wounded nine others, earning the department the top ranking based on shootings per 100,000 population, the Dallas Times Herald reported. Dallas' 10 police shooting deaths equaled 1.03 per 100,000 residents.

Record Chain Not Charged: Obscenity charges were dismissed Thursday in Dallas, Tex., against Sound Warehouse Corp., the only retail record chain ever charged with distributing an obscene musical recording. The 140-store chain faced nine misdemeanor counts of distributing obscene materials to adults or minors after a Sound employee sold a copy of 2 Live Crew's "As Nasty as They Wanna Be" album to a minor during an undercover Dallas police sting last July.

In a sudden reversal of fortune for two troubled stars, Michael Irvin and Erik Williams of the Dallas Cowboys were cleared of recent rape allegations Friday after sources said their accuser admitted the story was a hoax. The allegations that Williams sexually assaulted the 23-year-old woman while Irvin videotaped the scene are false, Dallas police said in a hastily called news conference.

Nearly four months after Dallas Cowboy wide receiver Michael Irvin was arrested in an Irving, Texas, motel room in the company of cocaine, marijuana and two topless dancers, the standout offensive star found himself in the center of a twist in the case that could only be called bizarre. A Dallas police officer subpoenaed to testify in Irvin's drug possession trial was arrested Thursday after trying to hire a hit man to kill the Cowboy receiver, police Chief Ben Click said.