Posted on 02/18/2006 7:36:20 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
HOUSTON- Houston police say they are making inroads in dealing with a rash of violent crimes attributed mostly to New Orleans gang members who evacuated to Houston along with other hurricane victims.
They asked this week for help in finding five Katrina evacuees believed responsible for three murders and two thefts. Last month they announced the arrests of eight others for the deaths of 11 fellow refugees.
While the city had "a huge explosion of murders" in November and December, Houston Police Sgt. Brian Harris said Friday the homicide rate has stabilized and is only slightly up from this time last year.
He credited a growing confidence that hurricane evacuees have in Houston police and increased cooperation among law enforcement agencies in cities with large numbers of Katrina evacuees for the improvement.
But Harris said local refugees are still wary of helping police.
"Their (justice) system was broken long before Katrina," said Harris, of the homicide division. "If people did come forward, they would see that the people arrested would be released. There was also a lot of intimidation from criminals. It was a culture of silence."
Capt. Juan Quinton, a spokesman for New Orleans police, said problems with witnesses coming forward and other hindrances to criminal investigations aren't unique to his city.
"There was a time when this department was questioned. There is no question about our integrity," Quinton said. "We have worked hard to remove any elements that caused us any problems."
Houston evacuees seeing that individuals arrested for violent crimes will do serious jail time has caused "the lines of communication to start opening up," Harris said.
Dorothy Stukes, a New Orleans resident living in Houston, said that many evacuees are afraid to come forward because they are afraid of reprisals from criminals and they lack confidence in law enforcement. But she said that has to change.
"As long as we are here, we have to learn to work with authorities to keep crime down," Stukes said.
However, Stukes said she feels local authorities and officials have unfairly portrayed all Katrina refugees in Houston as criminals whenever they've announced the arrests of gang members.
"It seems to me that we are getting picked on just because we are from Louisiana," she said.
Frank Michel, a spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White, said while the spike in murders the city experienced late last year was related in part to Katrina evacuees, it was also due to Houston gangs.
"The vast majority of (evacuees) who came here are law-abiding citizens," he said.
Police representatives from Dallas and Atlanta, cities that also have large numbers of Katrina evacuees, said Friday that while their agencies have dealt with crimes committed by refugees, they pale compared to Houston.
Harris said the FBI in New Orleans has created a Web site for law enforcement that lets authorities share information about what is going on in their particular cities with regard to crimes being committed by Katrina refugees. He said the Web site had been helpful in tracking trends.
Peter Scharf, executive director of the Center for Society, Law and Justice at the University of New Orleans, said he is hoping to get federal funding for a study that in part would look at why many of Louisiana-based gangs migrated to Houston instead of other cities.
Some possible answers include a thriving drug trade between Houston and Jacksonville, Fla., and similarities between neighborhoods in Houston and New Orleans, he said.
Scharf said he thinks crime rates in Houston will continue to drop as the gang members realize that Texas agencies are stricter in making arrests and getting convictions.
"They will realize there is a chance of doing serious time in Texas and that they'd better go back to New Orleans," he said.
Gangs are rampaging thorough US cities, with murder mayhem, black market dealings, and vandalizing neighborhoods for the purpose of terrorizing local communities with no control in sight, meanwhile the press and Democrats and focuses in insurgents in Iraq doing the same for purposes of discrediting the president while the Republicans remain sighted on homeland security for the interior of the US for purposes nobody knows.
These bastards better hope they pass me by. Never leave my house without my SW 357. As far as breaking into my house, well,, heh, heh. Bad idea. There is no place in my house where I'm not 15ft from a loaded weapon. Almost blew one guy away in my living room 4months ago. Luckiest man alive on that day.
The crime rate in Houston has risen due to the Katrina evacuees but look at the bright side, there are more Democrats in Harris County!
Here's a thought send them all back to N.O. now every one of them!
That's the Thanks Texas gets for being generous.
Each and every Liberal in Congress would EAGERLY volunteer to help the Houston PD apprehend the Katrina criminals. Compassion and tolerance is their middle name!
Big surprise. Hopefully, the bleedin' hearts of Houston are getting their naive little eyes opened big and wide over this one.
It's not just Texas. When was the last time you EVER heard a welfare, wic, food stamp, HUD, etc,etc,etc...recipient thank the taxpayers that feed them? NEVER.
All they do is complain that we still don't give them enough. Ungrateful P.O.S. is all they are.
I note your tag line and have to agree. I've owned about 10 semi-autos, only had one that has never jammed, my East German made Makarov (still in the 9 X 18 caliber). It's really too light a caliber for me to be comfortable with defending myself with it, although I'd certainly take it in a pinch.
Maybe Texas is a GOOD state for these monsters.
Texas has CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!
LOL. Absolutely right. The NOPD had no integrity. How else could they have had all the crime and gangs they did?
Gee, thanks chocolate city. I guess exporting nagin's constituency is their way of thanking us for our hospitality.
Residential areas and businesses in Houston have to hire private security, usually off duty police officers, to patrol if they want any crime control. While there are many dedicated officers on the street in Houston they have often been restricted by an an administration more interested in "social issues" than in crime control. Katrina has infected Houston with some of New Orleans' problems but that is largely a result of the way the city administration chose to deal with a newly introduced criminal element. They would rather be viewed as charitable than tough on crime.
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