They're just walking on sunshine.
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."
I finally found it at this site, you may enjoy this link a lot. http://www.astrosdaily.com/1965/1965.html
October 3:
St. Louis (79-81) at Houston (65-96)
The Astrodome
In all three seasons as the Colt .45s, they had ended the year with 96 losses. The Astros hope to avoid their 97th loss but Bob Gibson has other ideas. The Cardinal righthander notches his 20th win in a 5-2 decision. 26,893 attend to set a new attendance record of 2,151,470 for the year, second behind Los Angeles, after finishing last with 725,773 the year before. As a weekend promotion, fans watch demonstrations of a single-occupant jet pack that straps onto the back and lets the wearer blast off into the air and coast back to the ground.
May be better if they were illegal. Some of the illegals aliens work hard as hell and are honest.
As honest as being in the country...illegally, of course:D
I have the greatest respect for the Constitution of the United States of America. Maybe I'm getting old but I don't have much tolerance anymore for young kids who refuse to get an education and then rely on welfare and crime to make a living.
I guess I am prepared to support some kind of parasite law. If folks aren't working and contributing to society and they have engaged in crime they should lose their citizenship. No voting rights, no right to constituitonal protections. Prison.
Thanks Mayor White sarc
That's the truth. I am thinking about moving when my lease comes up. I've lived in that community for 8 years.
What's worse is I live one block . . . one freaking block from the city limits and I didn't get to vote on that mayor!
I already increased my weapons, especially when I saw what was moving in.
I believe that's the right idea, but that the Lawyers who represent these criminals should be assigned as their "guardians", and be responsible for their actions when they get them off the hook. The ol' "if you touch it, you own it" axiom should be invoked for lawyers AND judges who fail their statutorial duty to protect the public.
You're not too old. Society has slipped so far that you feel powerless.
This type of problem can be changed, but not at the local level with all the corruption. Governors need to get involved.
We're doing the same thing, as soon as we can find a blind person with a bad inner-ear infection. (That's the only person we could conceivably con into buying our sine-wave-foundationed place.)
Oh, now, see, that would piss me off.
Maybe you should move out west with us and Bacon and Hap. We could start a little compound out there and arm ourselves to the teeth.
And I remember Brewster McCloud flying around the Astrodome!
I lived here then. Came down to a Cardinals game in the summer from our home in Green Country, Oklahoma, as others on the thread have noted as their current homeplaces.
A month or so later, we were back amongst the resident Houstonians. Have been one several more times and this is probably my last.
I can think of two Astrodome moments that stand out in memory ... no, wait, now thinking of too many to enumerate. One was seeing my name in lights on the scoreboard. Another was going to the movie premiere party down on the field, but just thinking of that because I just had reason to recall it on this thread. Not really memorable.
*This ain't my first rodeo.*
We are probably neighbors.
Two killings within a week, within 1.5 miles of my house. Plus the neighborhood welfare office has a standing line outside waiting to get to our tax dollars, AKA welfare check.
" One was seeing my name in lights on the scoreboard. "
It must have been something seeing Rte66 on that giant light board.
Oh, *that name*? Ha ha! I see that literally everywhere, *still*! Actually, if I count that, or a hybrid of that - both my names - it was up there for years and years!
My real one was a dedication from a radio station (KIKK) that I bought a lot of time on. They treated me to a SkyBox for Merle Haggard's appearance at the Fat Stock Show & Rodeo in 19mumblemumblesomethingsomething and dedicated a certain song to me, as I was evidently the only person from Oklahoma anyone had ever known firsthand, lol.
That must have been one fine night.
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