Texas family upset over maintenance at Dallas cemetery

DALLAS — A family who deliberate to rejoice the Easter vacation through visiting their family members at a cemetery in Southeast Dallas stated that discuss with grew to become out to be traumatizing.

Latrice Hines was once tearful and her voice shaky, as she recorded a video from Lincoln Memorial Cemetery for Facebook Live on Saturday.

“If y’all have loved ones out here, buried out here at Lincoln, y’all need to get out here and check on them,” Hines said in the video. ”This is uncalled for. This is really unacceptable.”

Hines’ sister, Sandra Hines-Hoskins, was once buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery 3 months in the past. Right now, family participants are describing the bottom round her gravesite as showing overturned. There are massive piles of filth close to the plot. Large monitor marks from heavy apparatus are provide. There also are picket forums that experience allegedly been left within the space for weeks, amongst different problems. The family stated the gravesite seems to were desecrated.

“To be honest, I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a dump,” Hines stated.

This isn’t the primary time households have complained about prerequisites at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery.

“I was pissed off about the way this cemetery was being held,” Deven Venters stated whilst visiting his family’s plots again in September 2022.

Several households, at the time, spoke out about issues together with overgrown grass, broken headstones, and family members’ grave markers sinking into the bottom.

“We can’t find them and they have headstones,” Tabrasha Remmy defined in September 2022.

Back then, the cemetery’s General Manager, J. Kirby Pulliam, stated the problems had been because of rain.

Several legal professionals in Texas conversant in funeral and cemetery negligence circumstances stated customers do have rights beneath the legislation. 

Patrick Carew and Rafael De La Garza don’t have any connection to Lincoln Memorial Cemetery nor any of the households who spoke with WFAA-TV. Both legal professionals advise someone experiencing problems with a cemetery to first talk with the operator or body of workers about the issue.

“Often you can get to a resolution of your concern,” Carew stated.

If the body of workers is unresponsive, there are different choices.

“You may be able to pursue a complaint with the Texas Funeral Services Commission,” Carew stated.

Attorneys additionally counsel submitting a criticism with the Texas Department of Banking, the licensing and oversight company for cemeteries.

“Documentation is a huge deal,” De La Garza stated. He and his workforce counsel taking footage of any problems you practice, reporting them to cemetery operators, and inquiring for an incident record.

Consumers even have the best to pursue civil litigation, will have to it get to that time.

“As lengthy as I were given breath in my frame, if I’ve to return out right here each day, I’m going to try this. And I’m going to take photos each day till one thing is completed,” Hines stated tearfully.

No one from Lincoln Memorial Cemetery has replied to requests for remark about the newest considerations.