A bullet damaged tile in Brooks Brinkman’s bathroom. Photo courtesy of Brooks Brinkman.
Around 3 a.m. today, Brooks Brinkman woke up to the sound of gunshots. He began counting them, and when he realized something had hit his home, located on the 6300 block of Covington Lane near Woodrow Wilson High School and the Santa Fe Trail, he jumped out of bed.
He immediately went to check on his cat, who was safe.
Then he started looking at the ceiling because he thought something had hit his roof. But then he noticed a bullet on the bathroom floor and a hole in the tile. Later on, he saw that a second bullet had been shot through his window.
Brinkman called the police and let them know no one was injured. When they arrived, they gathered our neighbor’s information, asked to collect evidence and checked on Brinkman’s landlord, who lives next door.
This isn’t the first time Brinkman has heard gunshots near his home, where he’s lived for about eight months. In the past, partygoers across the trail have fired weapons late into the night. Many neighbors have heard or seen the sounds of street racing or even gunshots and fireworks, as Brinkman has. However, this is the first time something has happened so close to his home.
Brinkman said he doesn’t plan to add anything to his house to make it safer.
“I expect this was just a really unlucky occurrence,” he said. “At the end of the day, I don’t want to be driven by the paranoia of this happening again.”
And he’s not considering moving, either.
“This is my favorite area of Dallas,” Brinkman said. “For all of its warts, it’s relatively affordable, and I love the trails, the places and the people.”
Read more about crime in our neighborhood here.
