9th February 2012
TODAY'S BEST BET
Shooting victim recovering
Doug Tull ran to Pekers after being shot in the chest and remains in fair condition at Parkland Hospital
DAVID TAFFET | Staff Writer taffet@dallasvoice.com
- POINT BLANK | Oak Lawn resident Doug Tull, shown smoking outside Illusions in 2009 in this file photo, remains in fair condition at Parkland Hospital after being shot at point blank range early Monday morning. (John Wright/Dallas Voice)
A 49-year-old Oak Lawn resident was shot during a robbery early Monday morning, Aug. 30, when he was walking alone in his neighborhood. Doug Tull is recovering at Parkland Hospital following surgery to repair damage from the gunshot wound to his upper abdomen.
Frank Holland, the owner of the bar Pekers, was in his bar when Tull entered at about 1 a.m.
“He walked in the door and said, ‘Help, I’ve been stabbed,’” Holland said.
He said his business partner Ron Nelson ran behind the bar and called 9-1-1.
Nelson said he thought Tull was kidding until he saw the blood.
“Before he [Nelson] hung up, there were two police cars here,” Holland said. But ambulance response was much slower. Holland caught the entire incident on camera and said it took 6½ minutes for the emergency vehicle to arrive.
A witness who asked not to be identified saw the shooting from his apartment.
“I was sitting out on my porch,” he said. “Doug crossed Shelby and Brown walking toward Oak Lawn.”
He heard the confrontation but was too far to help stop it.
He said he heard Tull yell, “I don’t have any money” and then a shot and called police.
So when Tull arrived at Pekers, the police were already on their way to the area.
Tull said that he was walking toward Oak Lawn Avenue and a car pulled up from behind him. He said it stopped about five feet in front of him. Two young men got out of the car.
“I kept walking. They were pointing at something as if looking at a building,” he said. “I kept walking.”
He said when he realized something was wrong, he tried to run, but the assailants were too close and jumped him.
When they demanded money, Tull said he didn’t have any on him. They knocked him to the ground. One of the attackers went through his pockets, took his wallet and then shot him.
Tull thought he had been stabbed.
“I didn’t hear a gunshot,” he said. “I didn’t see a flash.”
Before they fled, Tull said he managed to pull a canister of mace from his pocket and spray one of the assailants.
Tull said the two attackers ran to the car waiting in the bank parking lot across the street, yelling, “Mace! Mace! Mace!”
Holland said he told the police that what he saw was a round puncture wound in Tull’s abdomen. He said the shooting must have been at point-blank range.
There was confusion at first about where the incident took place. The original police report said the shooting occurred at Shelby and Brown streets.
Tull later told police that he was attacked in front of the barbershop across Brown Street from the American National Bank parking lot.
Police were checking with the bank to see if their cameras recorded the incident and caught the license plate of the car. After the two attackers got out of the car, the driver pulled into the bank’s drive-through lane.
Tull identified the suspects as three black men in their early to mid-20s, driving an older four-door, gray Nissan Altima. They were dressed in white T-shirts and jeans and weighed about 150 pounds each.
After the attackers fled, Tull ran to Pekers less than a block away.
Tull was taken from the bar to Parkland Hospital where he was in intensive care for a day. Although the bullet entered his body directly under his heart, the only damage was to his stomach, liver and large and small intestines.
While operating, doctors were unable to find a bullet. Later x-rays found it lodged in his rectum. They said it may pass out of his body.
“Doctors can’t believe how fast I’m recovering,” Tull said from his hospital bed on Wednesday, Sept. 1.
The gunman was aiming down, he explained. The bullet shot at point blank range apparently ricocheted off of Tull’s sternum, which is why it did not exit his body. Although the incision made to repair his internal organs is more than six inches long, Tull was out of bed and walking by Wednesday. His right arm is bruised, he said, because the assailants were bouncing on his arm. He has a cut across his forehead but no other facial injuries.
- Frank Holland
On Wednesday, his friend Darwin Kopaska checked Tull’s mail. The parking garage manager at the Crescent sent Tull a check that one of his cashiers found in the parking lot. Tull confirmed that the check had been folded in his wallet.
Dallas Voice passed that information to police who are checking video at the Crescent parking garage to see if their cameras caught the assailants’ car.
Police detectives and LGBT police liaison Laura Martin are looking into the attack.
Tull said that no anti-gay epithets were shouted during the incident but police are not ruling out the possibility it was a hate crime.
While several other attacks have taken place near the Oak Lawn entertainment district recently, this is the first street shooting in awhile.
In May four men with baseball bats assaulted two men on Throckmorton Street near Congress Avenue. In 2008, Jimmy Lee Dean was beaten in a brutal attack just a block off the main Cedar Springs strip.
On April 16, 2007, Jose Landa was shot to death in a parking lot on Cedar Springs Road after stopping to get cash at the ATM on the street.
Police have warned people not to walk alone citing safety in numbers. However, when Jimmy Lee Dean was attacked, he was walking with Michael Robinson. The attack in May involved a couple walking together, and Jose Landa was with his wife and several friends.
Along with the incident report, police issued a neighborhood warning after the Tull attack. After the May baseball bat attack, police were criticized for not alerting the community sooner.
Apartment complexes in the area have not been as vigilant in passing along the warning. The witness said that management in his complex has remained silent on the attack.
In a separate incident, a jogger found a man unconscious on the jogging trail along Turtle Creek Boulevard early Friday morning, Aug. 27.
At about 7:15 a.m. police were called to assist the injured Oak Lawn man. It was not apparent at the time what happened to Shawn Stumph, nor do police know how long he had been there.
He was found laying unconscious on the trail near Bowen Street. A section of the guardrail along a now-closed section of road is missing above where Stumph was found. The drop to the creek bed below is about 30 feet.
Police are not sure if Stumph fell or was pushed in an attack, but said his wallet was in his pocket when he was found and there was no sign of a struggle. Stumph was rushed to Parkland Hospital and remains in critical condition in intensive care. He has extensive head injuries and is not able to answer police questions.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 3, 2010.
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THIS JUST RE-AFFIRMS WHY MY PARTNER AND I NEVER COME TO THE ‘GAYBORHOOD” UN-ARMED! To think that all gay men are some how passive and will run and NOT FIGHT BACK could be a fatal mistake.
We do not go looking for trouble but we are certainly ready when trouble comes looking for us. I spent 25 years in Urban LA and my partner and I have been together for 16 years-you have to know he has gotten the best “1 of 1″ firearms and ‘tactical training’ I could provide over those years. “Be Prepared”!
In the violent world we live in it is foolish to walk around thinking “it won’t happen to me”.
What do we expect to happen when you build luxury residences next to the projects? The area is in transition with some run-down Apartment complexes being razed but the projects remain. I agree with previous comment. It’s time to arm ourselves like one of those ‘real Americans’ Sarah Palin is always referring to. I doubt the guys who would commit robbery read much, if at all, but if you f with me I’m gonna shoot first and ask questions later. Bring it.
Our prejudices lead us to assume this crime occurred because it was in a gayborhood, people living in public housing are criminals, and these specific attackers lived in nearby public housing and read the comments in the Voice.
Mr Citizen, I don’t assume anything and I don’t think anyone is doing this- crime happens everywhere. In July, I had two white trash meth addicts show up at my ranch at 2 AM in the dark. My dogs alerted me and they were TOLD to leave in a rather confrontational way-so, I know crime is everywhere. HOWEVER, you cannot ignore the fact that low income housing (section
does have a higher crime rate than say more affluent areas, middle class communities, or many ‘rural” areas in the Metro Plex area.
Now throw into this THE FACT, that many social “predators” see gays as an easy target due to THEIR OWN stereotypes that we are all defenses, passive, non-violent, either unable or UNWILLING to fight back. We all know about the “sissy boy” stereotypes!
I interviewed suspects in LOS ANGELES who victimized members of the GLBT community. These suspects flat told me they selected their victims due to the area, the time of night, the fact they were alone or nearly alone, lack of lighting, AND THE BELIEF THAT ‘HOMO’S ALWAYS HAVE MONEY AND NICE THINGS”.
When my partner and I go out, we wear our Rolex’s, and drive a reasonably decent vehicle. We am well groomed and usually out after dark. It totally makes sense how a social predators would leap to this belief. The fact I maybe seen in an area which has a high concentration of GLBT’s would also lead them (correctly) to think I am gay-certainly when I am with my partner. So again, it sounds like these savages know what they are doing in someway’s.
Thus, we prepare ourselves for the day when a predator makes the mistake of singling us out as their victims. We hope to use their own stereotypes AGAINST THEM. We have talked about a lot of different possibilities and solutions. This is called “tactical thinking”-clearly the suspects had a plan and they came in a group on this occasion. To not have a response in today’s world to deal with a violent assault is foolish.
Sadly, we have those living among us who have lost all respect for human life and respect for others. They violently act out and use violence and sometimes deadly force upon others sometimes for no apparent reason at all. The victims pain doesn’t register and in meaningless to them. If-or-WHEN animals like this target my partner and I-we want to be ready, mentally, physically, and in possession of the right “tools” to ward off these violent attacks.
Unfortunately, too many in our community wanders around thinking “it will never happen to me so I don’t need to think of things like this. Those who do think this way are just paranoid.”
I agree with the last comment, you have to be prepared. it is a fact that Oaklawn and specifically the Maple ave area is very dangerous. If you are prepared, and EXPECT something to happen, you are not paranoid, you are being logical. Criminals have long come to Oaklawn because they think Gays are wimpy and less likely to defend themselves, and many times are drunk or close to being drunk while walking to their cars after leaving the bars. (I don’t know if this victim had been drinking) If we are going to break this type of thinking, it is going to take a criminal getting their ass kicked or whatever necessary force is required to defend ones self (and news coverage of it) for criminals to get the message. It is also going to take responsible bar owners to make sure their patrons are taken care of, not overserved, and when this happens they are in the care of a friend or in a cab. And patrons knowing when to say when. In short, don’t offer yourself up by walking half drunk to a car parked blocks away
I myself, have stopped going out in the evenings as much lately. Not only because I have stopped drinking as much, but also cause I can not afford to go out any more. But when things like this happen, it only makes you stay inside even more and then you become a prisoner in your own house/apartment.
So just like with the terrorists, you can NOT let the robbers/muggers, etc., keep you from going outside and going places, but it just goes to show you how thoughtless our society has become, when one human being can show such a “lack of respect” for another human beings life………over a measly amount of money and cell phone, shoot the person and then just drive off like nothing ever happened………
It is sad statement that when we first moved to Texas from Los Angeles last year and went out the first time to Oaklawn we were told by friends, “be real careful in Oak lawn people get robbed all the time”. This is the message being told by those who live in Dallas to people on the outside or new to the community- this is a sad statement about the center of our community and Dallas as a whole. We kind of joked, and snickered then said, “We are NOT LIKE OTHER GAY MEN. We fight back and will send the SOB’s to the morgue if that’s what is called for.” Now, we are not reckless, don’t go looking for problems, but we don’t lock ourselves in our homes either. It is a long story how we came to this mindset and has a lot to do with my past employment.
Regardless if you live in West Hollywood, Studio City, Austin, or Dallas we as a community tend to move into areas which are not as safe as others (it appears this is the case with Oak lawn)-we then have this habit of rebuilding the community and gentrifying it. This is every cities dream to have crappy communities taken over by GLBT’s- yet they just cannot throw out the “trash” that already lives around us. Just look at West Hollywood-that place was a dump back in the 80’s and early 90’s! Now look at it-yikes you cannot afford to live in Weho (boys town). Dallas is seeing the same thing in Oaklawn. So, knowing this going in, it is only prudent to use care when we are out and about. However, we will never be 100% safe no matter how much the community turns around.
I am skeptical of club owners from the start after dealing with them out in Los Angeles. I will not entrust my personal safety to them or any of their employees-no matter how “cute” they maybe. To entrust them with your safety is like saying “the police will protect me and catch those who hurt me”. In some cases, trusting bar owners is worse because like many on our community they have no “street survival skills” and if they tell you the truth-you become afraid and stay in and won’t spend money at their business. No, take personal responsibility for your own safety. Watch out for your friends if they get too intoxicated to care for their own safety or the safety of others- that’s what friends are for. Even if it means, calling a cab and throwing them in it or wrestling their keys away from them so they don’t drive-friends look out for each other.
Both Jim and “Oak lawn Citizen” have valid points. Jim, it is going to happen-the day is coming. I am a retired Police Officer who REFUSES to be a victim. You want my stuff- pry it out of my cold dead fingers. You may get me-but they will have to get my partner also. Then there are the other gay coppers I maybe with at the time-all of who are armed as well. As GLBT’s integrate more into the law enforcement community our numbers grow and you have more armed people in our community. I am shocked that more Texas GLBT’s DON’T CARRY GUNS given the laws of this state-man, what a great gift to us as a community!
I wish Mr. Tull a speedy and full recovery and hope those responsible are arrested and face trial for their crimes.
I am considering moving to the Oak Lawn area at the end of this year, and violence does concern me. I have always been one of those “anti-gun” liberals, however I am reconsidering my position.
I hope the Voice follows up with this story.