Cassandra Subi, via Facebook
A year ago this week, young Dallas native and recent Skyline High School graduate, Cassandra Subi, was caught in the crossfire of a shootout that started at about 2 a.m. outside the Azure Banquet Hall on Skillman, just off I-635. Subi, 19, was sitting in her car when a stray bullet struck her. She spent days in Presbyterian Hospital before succumbing to her injury. At a vigil, attendees described her as “a great friend to others, a strong and smart student, and a gregarious young lady … She was full of life until the tragic event.”
Of unsolved murders reported for 2016 in the northeast sector of the Dallas Police Department, Subi was the youngest. The site of her death remains a high crime, dangerous area on or near which several shootings have taken lives in recent years.
After another 19-year-old, Christian Dawson, a college student home for the holidays, was killed in the same parking lot on New Year’s Day 2017. The scenario is similar: a parking lot fight sent stray bullets into a crowd of revelers at about 1 a.m. Several reported injuries; Dawson’s the only fatal one.
I was passing the venue just after Dawson’s shooting. I spoke to some of the emergency responders. I went home and listed all of the murders that had occurred there and in nearby spots over the past couple years.
The owner of the Azure club reportedly told WFAA after Dawson’s death he was “freaked out” and planned to sell the club, although he would not reveal his name. The Dallas Central Appraisal District doesn’t show a deed transfer.
We reported last year that Dallas Police appointed 170 officers to a violent crime task force that is focused on Dallas’ five highest crime neighborhoods. Topping the list at that time was the Forest-Audelia region, which includes not only the Forest-Audelia blocks but also the Skillman/LBJ DART, Skillman/LBJ and a brief radius around it all. A decrease in crime, owed to the task force, was announced two months later. The thing is, these task forces are temporary entities. Things improve for a spell, but not for long without major change to the landscape.
In early 2017, Dallas Police detectives met with the community — a packed house at the Lake Highlands North Recreation Center — about several of the yet unsolved northeast Dallas murders. They told us that part of the effort to solve crimes, even after a vital period of time has elapsed, was to release to press updates on the annual anniversaries of unsolved homicides, “in order to keep the cases in the public eye.”
Hence, this week, Dallas remembers Subi.
A $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case is still available. Please call 214.671.3684 if you know something relevant.
