Woman's death is a key example for Dallas leaders of need to restrict strip club hours
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A woman's death outside a Dallas strip club this weekend happened shortly after 5 a.m., when the XTC Cabaret would have been closed if not for a recent court ruling.
Shalonda Anderson, also known as Shalonda Lofton, was streaming live to Facebook as security guards escorted her and her friends out of the all-nude cabaret Saturday morning. Within minutes, police say, two of those security guards fired shots at her car, killing her.
The Dallas City Council voted unanimously in January to pass an ordinance that would force sexually oriented businesses to close every night between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.
It argued the businesses attract crime, straining the city's police and fire resources.
The clubs' owners sued the city and a judge barred the city from enforcing the ordinance, finding the city didn't have good enough evidence tying violent crime to the clubs.
Dallas police, though, continue to collect information on crime around the clubs, and Anderson's shooting is likely to become a key example in its data.
Cell phone video taken by David Barfield, who'd arrived to pick up one of Anderson's friends Saturday morning, captures the commotion after the shooting.
"They could have hit any of the bystanders. They were shooting wildly," Barfield tells a police officer.
XTC Cabaret released a two second video clip, which it says shows Anderson driving her car into a security guard, crushing her leg. That security guard, it says started shooting to stop Anderson.
Barfield, though, in his video, is seen pointing to a female security guard walking with no visible injury, identifying her as the shooter.
"This lady right here was the main culprit," Barfield said.
Witnesses told police the security guards hit Anderson and her friends with pepper spray before they got in their car, then surrounded the car.
"My eyes, my eyes, my eyes," one yelled in video taken after the shooting.
Barfield also said the guards tried to make him and his girlfriend leave before police arrived.
"Let's go. Get in your car. Let's go," a guard says in one video as he approaches Barfield.
Dallas police Monday afternoon announced they had arrested security officer Sterlin Hammett, the second officer to fire shots, on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
The city has appealed the order preventing it from enacting its restrictions on strip clubs' hours.
In a court filling last month, the City of Dallas reported, within a month's time, it had responded to four shootings at or related to sexually oriented businesses, all between 4 a.m. and 5:30 a.m.
In response to a request for comment, Mayor Eric Johnson wrote CBS 11, "I am sickened by the tragic violence we have seen at sexually oriented businesses in our city. This incident once again demonstrates why the Dallas City Council - in the interest of public safety - unanimously voted in favor of reasonable restrictions on the hours of operation for these businesses. Lives are at stake, and that is why it is critical for us to continue to pursue policies that can help us achieve our goal of making Dallas the safest major city in the United States."
