Posted on 08/14/2006 12:03:17 PM PDT by My2Cents
Katrina victims blamed for Houston crime
By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer
A letter to inmate No. 1352951 and a cell phone bill for $76.63, both found in a soggy New Orleans duplex ruined by Hurricane Katrina, led Louisiana bounty hunter James Martin to Texas.
Again.
It marked the seventh time since Katrina that Martin, whose pursuit of bail jumpers often begins with clues salvaged from abandoned New Orleans homes, has followed a trail to Texas.
"I don't think Texas really knows what they got," Martin said.
Katrina sent a lot of bad guys to Texas, as Houston is finding out.
Houston took in 150,000 evacuees — the most of any U.S. city — after Katrina struck on Aug. 29. Houston police believe the evacuees are partly responsible for a nearly 17.5 percent increase in homicides so far this year over the same period in 2005.
About 21 percent of Houston's 232 homicides through July 25 involved an evacuee as either a suspect or a victim, according to police, who attribute much of the bloodshed to fighting among rival New Orleans gang members.
"New Orleans allowed a lot of these guys to stay on the street for whatever reason or be picked up and released after 60 days," said Capt. Dale Brown, who oversees Houston's homicide division. "Texas law, I don't want to say it's tougher, but we take these offenses very seriously."
Judge Robert Eckels, chief executive of Harris County, which includes Houston, said Katrina evacuees arrested in the Houston have cost the county's criminal justice system more than $18 million. In June, Texas Gov. Rick Perry sent $19.5 million to Houston to help pay for additional officers and overtime to police the city after Katrina.
The police and the Harris County sheriff's department said they have no figures on how many Katrina evacuees have been arrested. Houston police said misdemeanor and felony arrests overall actually dropped last fall from the same period a year earlier. But the sheriff's department reported a 41 percent increase in felony arrests in November from the year before.
"I think some saw (Katrina) as an opportunity," Martin's bounty-hunting partner, Michael Wright, said of evacuees who fled New Orleans with criminal records. "No one knows who they are over here."
Katrina evacuees received fair warning when they arrived in Houston. Days after the storm, Mayor Bill White went on television, flanked by Houston police, and welcomed Katrina's bedraggled survivors with a stern warning that a jail cell was waiting for anyone who crossed the line.
Evacuee Vincent Wilson, a leader of the Katrina Survivors Association, was impressed. He said that in New Orleans before Katrina, "everyone knows that if the jail's crowded you get a slap on the hand and get released."
Eckels predicted the county's worst guests will go home once their federal assistance dries up. And if many choose to stick around, the county will be ready: "We don't put up with it here. If you break the law, you're going to be prosecuted."
Let me be first to say...Duh!
Go ahead and say it:
"Bush's Fault!"
Hmmm. I wonder if that'll be mentioned in Spikes new HBO hit piece?
And if you break into MY house, you're going to be shot. No questions asked.
As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
No good deed goes unpunished.
damn you!
Outside of New Orleans, so does Louisiana.
Exactly.
My west-side neighborhood, which was formerly perfectly nice (and I have high suburban standards), is now a total ghetto. Thuggish kids wander the streets - usually the middle of the actual street, not the sidewalk that the cliche usually means - all day and night, most of them in a) basketball jerseys that are b) far too large. We hear gunshots every so often.
It's getting time to move.
Like we couldn't see this coming 365 days in advance.
A non-leftist headline would have read "Katrina Evacuees Responsible for Houston Crime"
The police should be allowed to crack down, start arresting them for jaywalking or loitering. Change the laws if necessary. I hate the way most government never reacts to something like this. If any city can do it, it's Houston.
Agreed. We have to stick with the original title, propagandistic as it is.
Gee, who would have guessed that one?
I had had enough by 1992 and moved on up to Oklahoma, Northeastern Oklahoma, and life is good.
I still miss certain aspects of living in Houston, but not enough to ever contemplate moving back there. I will visit from time to time. Most of my friends have moved to the coast or Hill Country anyway.
I was at the Astrodome on opening day and got to see the great Mickey Mantle hit the first homerun in the dome.
Not to mention all the Mexican bad guys this city harbors. What a mess. If a city can't deport its illegals and lock up its criminals, it can't expect anything less than hell on earth.
It's getting time to move.
That sounds like the problem we had in NW Austin. When a lady and her kid were killed, we moved within a few weeks.
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