Leading Off (5/5/2021)
Mesquite police kill a mentally ill man, a Neo-Nazi gets prison time, and a Wild West-style shootout breaks out at a Grapevine 7-Eleven.
By Peter Simek
Published in
FrontBurner
May 5, 2021
7:17 am
Mesquite Police Kill Man With History of Mental Illness. Police responding to a 911 call and an alleged assault were confronted by Ashton Pinke, 27, who they say charged at officers wielding a knife and club. Rather than using their top-notch training to tase or disarm the man, they shot and killed him. Pinke’s family says Pinke had a history of mental illness.
Neo-Nazi Gets Prison Time for ‘Swatting Call.’ John Cameron Denton, 27, participated in a nationwide, racist harassment campaign that prosecutors say is linked to several murders. In November 2018, Denton placed a call to 911 in which he claimed to have a pipe bomb and was going to attack Dar El-Eman Islamic Center in Arlington. It turned out to be a “swatting call,” in which perpetrators m