Free Republic

HOUSTON -- Houston police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 25-year-old Hurricane Katrina evacuee who had been wanted by Houma, La., authorities on a murder warrant. Houston police said they didn't know Sunday if the shooting of Cory Chevell Stovall was connected to his Louisiana warrant. Stovall was shot and killed about 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the courtyard of a Houston apartment complex. Police say they have not established a motive. They said in a news release that it did not appear that Stovall was the victim of a robbery. Two Katrina evacuees are being questioned in the death,...

Katrina victims blamed for Houston crimeBy 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...

This winter, FEMA put up over 300 Hurricane Katrina evacuees in New York City hotels. Almost all of them have gone back to their lives, their jobs. But not Theon Johnson. He’s currently sprawled out watching Halloween 5 on one of the two full-size beds in his room at the JFK Airport Holiday Inn. He is one of four evacuees still living in a hotel in the city. The others left in February and March, when, after spending more than $500 million, FEMA stopped paying for hotel rooms housing some 40,000 evacuees across the country. That left many scrambling for...

BOWDOINHAM, Maine - A Maine family is in shock after the Bowdoinham house they donated to a family who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina was trashed and abandoned, reported WMTW-TV in Portland. Albert and Nancy Poisson of Dresden decided to let William and Frances Gardner and their two daughters live in the house for a year, free of charge. But last week, the Poissons found some of their appliances gone, their hardwood floor marked up and trash strewn throughout the house. The Poissons found the Gardners through Catholic Charities of Maine and said they had been unable to track the...

A Knoxville Police Department officer shot and killed an armed suspect at Walter P. Taylor homes early Thursday morning, just as the suspect was about to fire through a door at another officer, according to KPD. The suspect, Larry Ardis, 56, a Louisiana man with a lengthy criminal record, was armed with a fully loaded .44-caliber magnum revolver, and had a box of ammunition in his pocket, KPD spokesman Darrell DeBusk said. A woman who encountered Ardis prior to the shooting has told investigators that he was "ready to kill and wanted to kill," and was wearing plastic over his...

The city of Houston is appealing for emergency funding to help to fight a huge crime wave following the arrival of refugees from hurricane-hit New Orleans. The murder rate in the Texan city leapt by 24 per cent last year, with the toll for November and December up by 70 per cent on the same period in 2004. There were 324 murders in Houston in 2005, compared with 263 in 2004. Of the 2005 tally, 51 occurred in November and December - up 21 on the same period of 2004. The police department has not monitored precisely how many can...

A shooting Friday night at a southeast Houston apartment complex in which four people were reportedly wounded is another example, one tenant said, of the tension between Katrina evacuees and local residents. According to the father of one of the shooting victims, a disagreement between two girls, possibly in their early teens, had been brewing all day. "They were just fighting over a boyfriend," said Michael Smith, 35, whose son Nikita Williams was wounded in the leg and hand. The shooting happened at the Cullen Park Apartments in the 4700 block of Wenda at about 8 p.m., residents said. A...