On The Fence With Ken Kalthoff

We’ve heard from several people complaining about skyrocketing power bills from a Texas retail electric provider called Dynowatt.  The company’s bills say that it has a “Texas Office” in Southlake. 

We went looking for the office Thursday and found nothing that said Dynowatt at the address.

We did find a place called PostNet!  It’s one of those mailbox stores.  There is NO Dynowatt ”office” in Texas.  The owner of the PostNet store told us he sees plenty of people looking for Dynowatt.

Dynowatt is owned by another company in Ohio.  A spokesperson there denied trying to deceive customers and told us the company has rented a real office in Southlake.  We visited that place and found it is one of those shared secretary kind of offices.  The spokesperson says the company is primarily geared to deal with customers by telephone.  The company is offering customers with variable rate bills the opportunity to switch to locked in rate plans with a $100 dollar credit on the next bill.  Several customers who tipped us off to all this say they want to switch companies instead.

I discovered today that the suspect arrested Monday in a rash of 30 Uptown Dallas burglaries has a long criminal record.  He was already on 5 years probation for burglary. 

33 year old Dustin Kienzlen received that sentence on June 10th for a Plano burglary.  He was arrested again Monday by the Tarrant County Auto Crimes Task Force after a Hurst Police officer found a car stolen from Dallas outside Kienzlen’s apartment.  Task Force officers tell me they immediately suspected him of stealing the car because they had dealt with him before.  His landlord told me he’d lived at the Hurst apartment since 2002, always paid his rent on time and never caused any disturbances there.  But Task Force officers got a warrent and inside his apartment they found all sorts of loot from the Uptown Dallas burglaries. 

The rash of 30 burglaries has been going on since April.  An engagement ring was stolen over the July 4th weekend from the Uptown apartment of a woman whose fiance died in Iraq.  That ring was found in the Hurst man’s apartment. 

Dallas police last week released surveillance photos of two suspects in their cases.  

Police are not sure if Kienzlen is either one of those two men in the photos.  More suspects are definately still at large and the investigation is not over.

Here’s our 5pm story:

http://video.nbc5i.com/player/?id=278903

One of the busiest freeways in North Texas was the scene of a drive-by shooting around 4am Monday morning.  It happened on I-35E Stemmons Freeway northbound at Market Center Boulevard.  Even at 4am, that’s a busy road.  The victim says another car pulled up beside him and started shooting through his passenger side window.  Police say the victim was grazed on the ear by a bullet.   

The victim is 33 year old Jamien Smith of Dallas.  He has a prior arrest record for Marijuana Possession in 2002 and 2007.  Police say he was unable to give them any description of the suspect or the suspect’s car, but that is not unusual in a case where a victim is trying to avoid gunfire.

 Smith was listed in fair condition Monday at Parkland Hospital.  He declined to talk with us there.  Police say they are still investigating whether the victim was being targeted by the shooter or whether he was the innocent victim of some perceived “road rage” conflict with the shooter earlier on the freeway.  Either way, it is gunfire in a very public place that could have wounded other drivers, too.