Dallas PD: Couple beats, robs two men in Oak Lawn hate crime
DALLAS - The Oak Lawn neighborhood of Dallas is on alert again after two men say they were beaten and robbed over the weekend by a man and woman who shouted gay slurs at them. Police are now looking for the two suspects.
At this point, the two victims do not want to talk on camera about the incident. They met with investigators on Monday and did follow up visits with their doctors. Police are calling the attack a hate crime.
Rafael McDonnell from the Dallas Resource Center is trying to spread the word about the most recent attack in Oak Lawn.
"We want to do is keep this story front and center in people’s minds,” he said.
Just after 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, Dallas police say two men were walking near the intersection of Knight Street and Brown Street when a Nissan Murano with a partial Texas plate of KRK. Police say a woman in the passenger seat began yelling gay slurs at the two men. Then, the male driver and the woman both got out of the car and assaulted the two men before stealing a cell phone. They got back in their car and drove away.
"There's several things with this incident that don't fit the pattern of the incidents where we had a big stretch of them several years ago and even the incidence we've had recently,” McDonnell said. “First off, the suspects appear to be a man and a woman. That's unusual."
Lee Daugherty is a Cedar Springs bar owner and co-founder of the neighborhood watch organization, Take Back Oak Lawn.
“It's an unfortunate trend that we're seeing down here in Oak Lawn,” he said. “What we're seeing here is kind of the weekend, later hours. We need to make sure we're looking out for each other and making sure we all get home safe."
McDonnell says Dallas police have committed additional resources to the area including undercover officers.
“One of the good things about this is, according to Dallas police, their response time to this particular incident was about a minute,” he said.
McDonnell says there have been roughly a half dozen attacks in the last six weeks.
The suspects are described as a white male about 5'8" in his late 20s or 30s and was wearing a black shirt, shorts and sneakers. The other suspect is a white female about 5'7" in her late 20s or early 30s with long brown hair. She was last seen wearing a dark denim jumpsuit with wedge shoes.
Anyone with information on the attack or the suspects is urged to call Dallas PD at (214) 671-3629.