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."
We know what we got. And the Houston GOP was too afraid to step forward and demand Bill White answer for his "feel good" policy. He ran unopposed in his final mayoral race (except for some fringe candidates).
I am a Westsider too. Kirkwood & Briarforest area. We have apartments turning into Section 8 housing. Just frikin' lovely!
BS, they are spotting the drug running gang bangers floating BACK AND FORTH between Houston and New Orleans. They're "ours" now.
If "federal assistance" were truly to be blamed, end it now. The criminals are ruining it for everyone and do not need another DIME of assistance.
Very good point. If a government fails to protect its citizens and punish the bad guys, it has failed, and has lost its legitimacy.
There's a problem here that's WAY bigger than a hurricane. It's a group of people knowingly living on the edge of disaster confident that when the compost hits the air conditioner the nation will bail them out.
And there's a nation, and especially a political party, encouraging that belief.
And, yes, there are the less capable and less culpable who are caught up in this. But as far as I'm concerned, anyone who lives below not only sea level but below the level of one of the world's largest rivers and doesn't have flood insurance has a pretty weak claim. It's been a decades long "Hold my beer and watch this!" and when the predictable, indeed the inevitable, happened, they want us to feel a moral duty to let them live that way again.
Houston is adding red light cameras (active on September 1st), increased speeding ticket volume, increased DWI patrols, etc. etc.
Doesn't do a thing to help my friends who were carjacked or my friend who was shot in a drive by last month.
The HPD is another tax revenue source for the city budget. Not much else.
"I was at the Astrodome on opening day and got to see the great Mickey Mantle hit the first homerun in the dome."
I don't remember if it was opening day or not, but I remember the guy with the jet pack flying around inside the Astrodome.
Now you know why us folks in the northeast support "snob zoning." Keeps prices very high, but keeps the scumbags out.
But Chuck Rosenthal will still prosecute YOU for having a gun LEGALLY in your car. He has said he does not agree with the state legislature.
And more of the violent crime is happening on the "streets" (whether it is at a parking lot, gas station, car wash, or midblock downtown).
I lost all respect for Houston when you guys elected "Out of Town Brown" a man who was all but run out of New York by the citizenry, as Mayor.
Same here. I grew up in Alvin. Moved to Tulsa in '97 and have no desire to go back.
Katrina Victims should be rephrased to Leftist Politics Victims.
Wasn't my fault. The racist newspaper railed against Orlando Sanchez (Republican and Cuban immigrant).
Then after Brown was safe, they assailed him as incompetent.
Anywhere but Houston, huh? Gee, Alvin...ever meet Nolan Ryan?
Never again....live and learn.
The Chronicle is an evil, evil bird cage liner. I say this as one who was interviewed by said rag twice (in the business section).
In other news, the to do list for a Muslim is;
Kill all heretical Muslims.
Kill everyone who isn't Muslim that you can't tax and enslave.
Heh heh...yeah, I might have to move back...but I don't have any desire to! I really love Oklahoma.
Yes, I met Nolan Ryan...a few times. When I was a kid, he gave me a signed baseball card, from when he played with the Angels. He signed it when he came to visit us at school. I don't remember what happened to it, I probably just left it on the desk. Hmph...it was just Mr. Ryan!
Oh, that wasn't my district's doing. The Dread Pirate Mayor was elected by the same knuckleheads who vote for Sheila Jackass Leech - a district which, I might add, has something like a 22% high school graduation rate and a 73% teenage pregnancy rate, but a 98% voter turnout rate. So I guess it all balances out.
(My area is responsible for John Culberson.)
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