The Irving Police Department is currently investigating a single vehicle fatality accident involving two Dallas Cowboys football players. On Dec. 8 at about 2:21 a.m., Joshua

Price-Brent, a 24 year-old Irving resident, was driving westbound in the 1400 block of the NSR of E. S.H. 114. His vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed when it hit the outside curb causing the vehicle to flip at least one time before coming to rest in the middle of the service road.

When officers arrived, they contacted Price-Brent who was identified as the driver. He was responsive and able to speak with officers. Officers also located Jerry Brown Jr., a 25 year-old male, who was the passenger in the car. Brown was unresponsive and transported to an area hospital, where he was later pronounced deceased.

Officers at the scene believed alcohol was a contributing factor in the crash; therefore, Price-Brent was asked to perform field sobriety tests. Based on the results of the tests, along with the officer’s observations and conversations with Price-Brent, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated. He was transported to an area hospital for a mandatory blood draw. Once it was learned that the passenger of his vehicle had died as a result of the crash, Price-Brent was booked into the Irving City jail on one count of Intoxication Manslaughter.

Investigators are also looking for any witnesses who might have details about the incident and are asking that they contact the Irving Police Department at 972-721-2762.

Compassion is not a spectator sport. Everyone has to play. – Charlotte Jones Anderson

By Sissy Courtney

One in every five children in Irving live below the poverty line, and The Salvation Army helps more children each year than any other organization in the world –one person every second. The Army helped over 30 million people across the United States this year, and they depend on the generosity of corporations and individuals in order to continue that work.

About 450 supporters of The Salvation Army attended the group’s Super Lunch Dec. 10, at the Irving Convention Center. Dallas Cowboys Executive Vice President of Brand Management Charlotte Jones Anderson spoke to the group. Anderson is the first female in history to chair The Salvation Army’s National Advisory Board.

“In 1997, Charlotte negotiated a nationally broadcast deal for the Cowboys Thanksgiving Day halftime show to kick off the National Red Kettle Campaign,” said emcee for the event Al Zapanta. “Now a tradition, this annual event has seen performances from Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, Destiny’s Child, Sheryl Crow, and Enrique Iglesias.

“These extravaganzas boosted donations to The Salvation Army. Over the past 15 years, $1.5 billion have been raised nationally through the Red Kettle Drive.”

Anderson shared her passion for the Dallas Cowboys and The Salvation Army.

“Passion is a funny thing,” Anderson said. “It has been said that nothing really great has ever been accomplished without passion.”

Last spring, Anderson had lunch with the Dalia Lama.

“As he was espousing some of his many pearls of wisdom, there was one that struck particularly close to home,” Anderson said. “He said, ‘True passion and emotion can cloud reality.’”

Anderson told how that cloudy reality failed to dim the vision of her father Jerry Jones when he decided to purchase the faltering Dallas Cowboys in the 1989 and to build Cowboys Stadium in Arlington 20 years later. She said the stadium has been visited by over 5 million people and seen on TV by over one billion.

“We realized that we can take that visibility and that interest and couple it with the championship tradition … to help someone else help someone else.” Anderson said. Her father gave her a mission to find an organization for them to stand beside and help.

Jones told his daughter to find an organization that can stand up to the media spotlight and scrutiny, one that can use the visibility, so that they could talk about something good when they talk about the Dallas Cowboys.

An unexpected meeting between the CEO of Frito Lay, Steve Reinemund, and Anderson led to the Cowboys’ partnership with The Salvation Army.

Reinemund, at that time the National Chairman of the Salvation Army, told her he thought the Cowboys organization could help raise awareness and tell more people of all the good things the Salvation Army does. That chance meeting led to the Cowboys Thanksgiving Day halftime show that kicks off The Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign every year now.

Anderson asked the people attending the luncheon to imagine what the world would be like without the Salvation Army and she listed the programs that would be missing if there were no Salvation Army:

Thanksgiving and Christmas would not be possible for over 4.2 million people.

2.9 million people in our prisons who are ready to change our lives would be without a minister.

87,000 Americans would still be unemployed.

190,000 at-risk children would miss the opportunity to attend summer camp.

Working parents of over 210,000 children would not have a safe place for their preschool children to go and to learn and grow during the day.

More than 1 million people who are victims of disasters such as hurricanes and tornados would have no place to go for financial assistance, food or shelter.

Over 700,000 senior citizens would remain hungry, lonely and desperate.

64 million means would still be missing among the most venerable in our society.

Ten million more nights would be spent on the street by the homeless.

325,000 people struggling from drug and alcohol abuse would have nowhere to turn to change their lives.

Over 15,000 children in the United States alone would still be victims of slavery and human trafficking.

“But thank Goodness; we don’t have to imagine that,” Anderson said. “We have The Salvation Army. The greatest responsibility we have as the Dallas Cowboys is what we can do to help those in need. We know that people don’t stand in line to buy tickets to see grace and mercy at work, and we know they don’t fill the stands and cheer for acts of compassion, because compassion is not a spectator sport. Everyone has to play.

“The Salvation Army is the men and women in blue uniform who work day in and day out, who work without affair, without accolade, helping those who are victims of natural disasters to those who are victims of the everyday disasters that strike in our community among the most venerable and impoverished,” Anderson said. “They provide hope to the hopeless, shelter to the homeless, and food to those in need. They’re an organization that we can trust.

“Right here in our community one in five children lives below the poverty line. Spread the word and most importantly tell you children about the Salvation Army. Tell them, ‘They are an Army fighting on our front line of our war on poverty right here in our own community. They are humble stewards of other people’s generosity. They feed empty stomachs and hungry souls. They are the Salvation Army, and they are doing the most good.’”

To donate $10 to the Irving Salvation Army, text DoGood IRV to 80888.To donate $5, text DoFoodDFW IRV to 80888.

City of Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne has been elected Vice Chair of the US High Speed Rail Association. The USHSR is the only organization in the United States working entirely on advancing a state-of-the-art national high speed rail network across the country. 

“We are pleased Mayor Van Duyne agreed to take an active role in the Association,” said Chairman Rod Diridon, Executive Director, Mineta Transportation Institute. “The Mayor has a wealth of transportation experience and we plan to leverage her passion and vision for the future of high-speed rail to further the effort.”

The USHSR is an independent, nonprofit trade association chartered to organize and mobilize the industry with a shared vision for a 21^st century, 17,000 mile national high speed rail system built in phases for completion by 2030. 
“I look forward to working on advancing transportation lines across America and especially across the State of Texas,” said Van Duyne.

Source: City of Irving

The Irving Police Department made an arrest this week (Dec. 9-13) in a series of residential burglaries that occurred in the Valley Ranch area in late October. The burglars in those offenses targeted high end jewelry and small electronics and usually made entry into the homes by breaking out a window in a rear door of the residence.

The suspect, Jefferson Nunez-Suarez (22) of Houston, was arrested at his residence by the Houston Police Department on a warrant for burglary of a habitation issued by Irving Police. Upon his arrest, Irving investigators traveled to Houston and executed a search warrant at his residence and were able to recover electronics that had been reported stolen from Irving, Plano, Carrollton, University Park and Austin. They were also able to recover a large amount of jewelry that is believed to have been stolen and are working to try and determine where it was taken from.

This arrest is a major accomplishment in a very lengthy investigation and it could not have occurred without the assistance of residents who came forward and provided information about what they saw in the areas where the offenses occurred. The assistance the Houston Police Department provided was invaluable and, because of their help and the hard work of the Irving investigators, this arrest and property recovery was possible.

Jefferson Nunez-Suarez is still in custody in the Harris County Jail on a $100,000 bond awaiting transfer to Dallas County.