12 May 11–17, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Admission Starts at $10 • General Parking FREE • 1/2 Mile North of I-30 on Belt Line Road (972) 263-RACE • LoneStarPark.com THURS. & FRI. Gates Open 5:00 p.m. First Race 6:35 p.m. SAT. & SUN. Gates Open 12:00 p.m. First Race 1:35 p.m. SATURDAY, MAY 13 Make sure to arrive early, as only the first 1,500 fans in attendance on Saturday, May 13 will receive One (1) Free Lone Star Park T-Shirt!* Gates open at 12:00 p.m. and the first race is at 1:35 p.m. *Available sizes include L and XL only. While supplies last. FREE T SHIRT GIVEAWAY TREAT TO A DAY AT THE RACES Garcia “may have had white supremacist or neo-Nazi beliefs, people familiar with the investigation said Sunday.” The Post article said Garcia was wearing a patch reading “RWDS,” which the paper said stands for “Right Wing Death Squad,” a phrase they say is popular with neo-Nazis, right-wing extremists and white supremacists. Allen police Chief Brian Harvey said dur- ing a press briefing the night of the shoot- ings in Allen that the gunman was killed by an officer who was responding to an unre- lated call at the shopping center. None of the officials gathered for the May 6 briefing took questions. Specific de- tails on the victims had not been released by authorities by Monday, May 8. Some re- ports have stated the victims of the shoot- ing ranged in age from 5 to 61. Police did say that seven people, including the alleged shooter, were dead when more police ar- rived on the scene. The gunman opened fire after parking his car at the end of a parking aisle in front of the H&M store. Earlier reports suggested a second gunman was being pursued, but police have since confirmed the shooter acted alone. A widely circulated dash-camera video reportedly shows the shooter exit a vehicle and fire in the direction of the store. When gunshots were heard, many people report- edly hid inside of stores where they waited to be brought out by police. The mayor of Allen, Ken Fulk, said he had received calls from both Gov. Greg Ab- bott as well as from the White House. Presi- dent Joe Biden ordered U.S. flags be flown at half-mast in honor of the victims. Biden also tweeted a message regarding his desire for more gun control laws. “Once again, Congress must send me a bill banning assault weapons and high-ca- pacity magazines. Enacting universal back- ground checks. Requiring safe storage,” the tweet said. “Ending immunity for gun manufacturers.I will sign it immediately. We need nothing less to keep our streets safe.” ▼ LEGISLATURE PASS OR FAIL DESPITE BIPARTISAN SUPPORT, FENTANYL TESTING STRIPS MIGHT REMAIN ILLEGAL IN TEXAS. BY KELLY DEARMORE T he tragic impact fentanyl has had on families across Texas in recent times has rightfully grabbed a lot of atten- tion from the media, school districts, law en- forcement agencies and governing bodies. The crisis fentanyl has caused has also cre- ated some unlikely alignments. In Texas, it’s not often that conservative Gov. Greg Abbott finds himself in line with a cause that many Democrats have vocally supported. But maybe the menace of fentanyl has brought about some new ways of thinking. Or not. Although Abbott has expressed his sup- port of legalizing fentanyl testing strips, a stance that he and many Republicans have held in the past, this current state legislative session has yet to see the passage of any of the bills pertaining to fentanyl testing strips. Fentanyl testing strips work by dipping them into a small amount of a drug dis- solved in water. Usually within a few min- utes, the strip will indicate whether the tested sample contains fentanyl. As of now, the strips are on the state’s list of illegal drug paraphernalia. Fentanyl is both cheap and extremely powerful, and when laced into an illegally manufactured pill, it is often deadly. Propo- nents of taking fentanyl testing strips off the illegal drug paraphernalia list say that we’re living in a time when a single, illicitly obtained pill falsely billed as Percocet or Oxycontin could have been made with a le- thal amount of fentanyl. North Texas has been a hotbed for juvenile poisonings and deaths, with students in Plano and Carroll- ton falling victim to pills they believed were other well-known, and typically non- lethal, opioids. According to a recent Texas Health and Human Services presentation, there were 3,340 “unintentional synthetic opioid deaths related to fentanyl,” from 2020 through August 2022. Opponents of any measure to legalize fentanyl testing strips suggest it would en- able and embolden drug users. The Dallas Morning News reported that in April, Demo- crat Sen. John Whitmire of Houston ad- dressed the opposition in the Senate to legalizing testing strips by saying, “It’s just illogical, but there’s a belief by some mem- bers that it might safeguard the use.” Texas state Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Democrat from Dallas, authored Senate Bill 623, which would legalize testing strips for controlled substances. He told the Observer in January that the bill was one of his top priorities because, as he saw it, the testing strips would save lives. Now? The senator from Dallas isn’t sure what lies ahead for SB 623 since it has not received a hearing. According to a spokesperson, Johnson is encouraged by the progress of a bill similar to his, House Bill 362, authored by Cypress Republican Rep. Tom Oliverson. The House voted overwhelmingly in April, 143-2, to send the bill to the Senate’s Committee on Criminal Justice. “Overdose deaths continue to skyrocket as fentanyl floods across our southern bor- der, and we need a way to combat the crisis,” Oliverson said on the floor of the House in early April, according to a report from Texas Tribune. But at this point, nothing has changed. Dallas City Council District 9 member Paula Blackmon, who was reelected on Saturday, has served on the city’s opioid strike force since its inception last fall. She says state lawmakers are “stuck in a political game of chicken right now.” “It’s really bothersome to me that we can’t find common ground or that things like this are being held hostage,” Blackmon said. “I probably shouldn’t go that far, but I will because we’ve got kids that are going to do things we don’t want them to. Let’s not make a decision that they thought was good at the time, become one that is just cata- strophic. If they want to be responsible and say, ‘Hey, let’s just get these strips and make sure that we are safe,’ then you know what? We should do that.” Unfair Park from p10 O
