At a Violent Far East Dallas Intersection, City Hall Hopes to Sue Its Way Out of Crime

First, in September 2017, came a lawsuit from city of Dallas attorneys that accused an apartment complex of being "a hub for drug use and sales and related violent crime."Then, three months later, came a lawsuit from the city that accused the next-door strip mall "a hub for drug use and sales and related violent crime."And now comes a new lawsuit from the city that accuses the nearby Texaco gas station of being "a hub for drug use and sales and related violent crime."Same allegation, same intersection: Ferguson Road along Interstate 635 — a hundred yards, give or take, from the Garland side of the highway and an exit away from Mesquite. A part of town that's but a tee shot from the Dallas Athletic Club, built atop 317 acres of former farmland in the 1950s.City attorneys, community prosecutors and police say the crime here — the shootings, the beatings, the dope-slinging — is the fault of property owners and business managers who have not done enough to run off the bad people who do bad things.  Continue reading...