Posted on 08/19/2002 11:53:25 AM PDT by USA21
Raid on Kmart lot leaves shock, anger
Teenagers, parents question arrests of 425 outside store
A crowd of angry teenagers and their parents accused police Sunday of arresting many innocent bystanders during an overnight raid on a west Houston parking lot where youths apparently congregate.
Scores of Houston police officers swarmed onto the Kmart parking lot in the 8400 block of Westheimer about 12:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested about 425 people for criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor.
Steve Campbell / Chronicle Soneary Sy is overcome with emotion outside the police station as she waits for her son to be released. Sy said she waited all night for her 17-year-old son, a straight-A student, to come home.
Houston Police Department spokesman Martin DeLeon said many cars were towed.
DeLeon said business owners have been complaining about youths gathering on their parking lots on weekend nights and causing a commotion.
DeLeon said he did not have more details about the incident because the two captains in charge of the raid, M.A. Aguirre and J.P. Mokwa, were sleeping Sunday after working all night.
The Kmart store is open 24 hours a day, and many of the people at the HPD station at 61 Reisner said Sunday that they had simply been shopping or eating at a Sonic drive-in restaurant that adjoins the discount store's parking lot when they were arrested.
Kmart and Sonic supervisors referred all questions to their corporate headquarters, which were not open Sunday.
"We went to use the restroom at Kmart and to buy a Scrunchi (hair band), and when we came back to our car, cops were coming in (the parking lot) and they tied our hands," said Brandi Ratliff, 18, who said she was a straight-A student at Waller High School and never had any problems with the law.
Ratliff said that even though she and two friends told police they had just come out of the Kmart, all three were arrested and spent the night in jail.
"It was traumatic," said a tearful Ratliff on Sunday morning after her parents drove from Stafford to pay her $300 bail at the downtown city jail. "It was sick where they were holding us. A prostitute was fighting with another woman. The food they served was food you would serve to a dog, not a human."
Ratliff and her two friends, Kris Karsteter, 21, and Kyesa Scott, 18, all had pink marks on their wrists from where they said police had tied plastic handcuffs too tightly.
Scott said she didn't have the money to pay bail and so she pleaded guilty to avoid spending another night in jail.
Steve Campbell / Chronicle Brandi Ratliff, left, and Kyesa Scott, both 18, comfort each other after being released from police custody. "It was traumatic," Ratliff said of her arrest in a Kmart parking lot and a night in jail.
Emily Demmler, 19, said: "All I was doing was eating ice cream."
Demmler said the only trouble she'd previously had with authorities was being called into the principal's office twice in elementary school for gossiping. She said she pulled her car into the Sonic lot shortly after midnight so she and her two friends could get some ice cream after a night of karaoke.
After about five minutes, police "just swarmed," Demmler said.
"We thought we were in the middle of a drug bust, and we thought, `We're cool; we're not doing anything wrong,' " said Demmler, a part-time lifeguard at the Jewish Community Center who is starting college this fall at the University of Houston.
Instead, all the patrons at the Sonic were ordered by police to march to the Kmart lot, where they joined throngs of other people who were being arrested, she said.
"My purse and my friend's purse were still in the car ... but the cop wouldn't let me get them," said Demmler, whose mother eventually recovered her car and both purses.
"We asked police why we were being arrested, and they said, `Everybody is receiving equal treatment from the Houston Police Department tonight.' It didn't matter what you were doing; they arrested you."
Demmler said many youths appearing to be 13 or 14 were arrested and taken to juvenile detention facilities, adding, "They even arrested a 10-year-old girl who was having dinner with her father and took her to juvenile detention.
"She got separated from her father and I asked her how old she was, and she told me she was 10," Demmler said. "She was dazed."
In a phone interview, Demmler claimed to have "huge marks on my arms" from tight handcuffs.
Leanne Williams said her 19-year-old son called her from jail and told her he showed police a receipt for bottled water from Kmart, but he was still arrested.
She said her son called her five times from the downtown jail, but police still couldn't locate him at 11 a.m. because his paperwork had been delayed.
"I gotta spend my Sunday at the jail searching for my son they can't find," said her husband, Jerome Williams.
Soneary Sy didn't know her 17-year-old son, a straight-A student, was arrested until he called her at 6 a.m.
"I didn't sleep all night waiting for my son to come home" said a sobbing Sy, a Cambodian immigrant who moved to Houston 22 years ago. "He tried to go to Kmart and as soon as he got to Kmart he was arrested."
ASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — Federal agents in 29 states have arrested dozens of fathers who owe millions of dollars of child support, in a nationwide sweep that officials describe as a significant expansion of the federal role.
More notable than any one arrest, the officials say, is the message that the Bush administration is sending about its decision to pursue a more aggressive approach by using federal criminal prosecution against people who have repeatedly flouted state court orders.
Even though child support collections have increased in recent years, many parents still evade their obligations by moving from state to state and job to job. Surveys by the Census Bureau suggest that one-third of the parents entitled to child support under court orders or agreements are not receiving it
Dane, CJ ... comments?
i hate it
Apparently, K-Mart should have just armed their checkout clerks and sent them out to clear the trespassers.
"She got separated from her father and I asked her how old she was, and she told me she was 10," Demmler said. "She was dazed."
If true the Houston police department will be paying this guy and his 10 yeard old through the nose for many years.
and, incidentally, I do support the WOD
Naaaaaahhhh, what's the fun of that?!?
In the meantime . . . I wonder how many muders, rapes, thefts, and destruction of property occured. I am going to sleep so much better now KNOWING that the cops have the K-mart parking lot locked down tight.
Did you mean to call HLL an ass, or did your finger slip?
Oh, good move! 'Search' is your friend.
But since the cops were called, well... it's a terrible thing you know.
Don't get me wrong... when I was a kid we hung out in large numbers in parking lots on the local drag. But those property owners didn't complain. They posted a few signs, but they never called the cops on us.
Did you read the article? Here's some snippets for you, so you don't have to strain yourself reading the whole thing.
A crowd of angry teenagers and their parents accused police Sunday of arresting many innocent bystandersNow, remind me, which laws were these fine men-in-blue enforcing?The Kmart store is open 24 hours a day, and many of the people at the HPD station at 61 Reisner said Sunday that they had simply been shopping or eating at a Sonic drive-in restaurant that adjoins the discount store's parking lot when they were arrested.
Emily Demmler, 19, said: "All I was doing was eating ice cream."
... all the patrons at the Sonic were ordered by police to march to the Kmart, where they joined throngs of other people who were being arrested
"...It didn't matter what you were doing; they arrested you."
"They even arrested a 10-year-old girl who was having dinner with her father...
he showed police a receipt for bottled water from Kmart, but he was still arrested.
A crowd of angry teenagers and their parents accused police
Well, that settles it, then! The police are obviously guilty. This conclusion is reinforced by the statements from the officers in charge, who were, uh, not given the opportunity to respond to this highly objective article.
Even though you're a stickler for details, I noticed you missed this particular tidbit to highlight:
DeLeon said he did not have more details about the incident because the two captains in charge of the raid, M.A. Aguirre and J.P. Mokwa, were sleeping Sunday after working all night.
Now bring me my boots!!
Tresspassing and juvenille curfew for starters.
Even if you purchase something at a store does not give you the right to loiter on their property.
Whatever happened to private property rights?
Do you think these people who throw that term around constantly really know what goes on in a REAL police state?
Now you've gone and done it..
Incoming... take cover. !
Yes. The government beats up on innocent teens buying make-up and Bibles at a large discount store, after innocently enjoying a burger and malt.
Poor innocent children, jack booted cops
280 comments.
EBUCK
What about the folks eating at the Sonic?
If I'm eating at Sonic at 12:30am following a long day of National Guard Drill and cops show up and order me into the parking lot of the Kmart next door with no arrest and no probable cause, I'm going to have a problem with it.
Wouldn't you?
Appearantly K-Mart and Sonic can, otherwise they wouldn't be open 24 hours a day.
EBUCK
This girl and her boyfriend spent the night in jail for simply having been at the club at the time. The police were insulting and dismissive.
This is, I believe, a result of the years' of cries of racial profiling. Now, everyone gets arrested. Next step -- no enforcement at all.
It's the bureaucrats who sent them there who are the primary problem.
You know, I think I read about that happening in the Soviet Union under Stalin once, or was that Cambodia under Pol Pot?
They're almost as bad as the Harris County Keystone cops.
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