Corey Crosby

Corey Crosby, 28, a Black man, was caught in the thin, predawn quiet of January 11, 2020, when police rushed to the Hawthorn Suites at 7880 Alpha Road in Far North Dallas after a shooting call came in around 4:15 a.m. By the time officers reached the scene, they encountered a man suffering from apparent gunshot wounds, and Dallas Fire-Rescue pronounced him dead.

In the first hours after the gunfire, the details that surfaced were fragments—people describing a sudden burst of violence a ...