The plan that led to the arrests of hundreds of teenagers at Kmart, Sonic

KHOU TV Houston ^ | August 24, 2002 | By Jeff McShan

[Dog Gone]

"Simply issuing citations has had little or no impact"

08/23/2002

By Jeff McShan / 11 News

HOUSTON (KHOU) -- With parents still fuming over the arrests of hundreds of teenagers for trespassing, 11 news has learned the chief, himself, was apparently in on the planning for Operation E-racer.

Houston Police Chief Clarence Bradford made it clear this week that the raid on Westheimer would be thoroughly investigated. Hundreds were arrested in a sting operation set up to curtail street racers and trespassers.

But many have filed complaints saying the arrests were unjust. People like Emily Demmler. "I was handcuffed. I was put in the back of a van," she said. "And I sat in a jail cell from 4:00 to 9:00."

Monday night Chief Bradford called for an investigation of the controversial crackdown. He wanted to know who was in charge? What instructions were given to officers? And why were arrests made instead of issuing citations?

Who was in charge? It turned out to be HPD Captain Mark Aguirre. He told 11 news that he was surprised the chief had so many questions about the raid. "It was my understanding that Chief Bradford was in the loop," said Aguirre. "I assume that. Nothing of this magnitude would escape his attention."

Friday night 11 News obtained an interoffice correspondence, which appears to back Captain Aguirre's beliefs. The memo is the plan for last weekend's raid. It was sent to Chief Bradford on May 13, months ago.

In the correspondence Captain Aguirre explains to the chief the proposed solution for the problems in that area and why issuing tickets would not work.

Aguirre says, "Simply issuing citations has had little or no impact. By arresting individuals observed violating local, state or federal laws and towing violators' vehicles, law enforcement will have more of an influence over the individuals' future behavior."

Yesterday most, if not all, the officers involved in the raid were told to report to police headquarters where they picked up a set of over 20 questions. They'll all have to answer the inquiries about what happened last weekend, such as who was in charge. The questions came from HPD's Internal Affairs Division, which is investigating along with the Houston's Office of Inspector General.

[Dog Gone]

I avoid that area on weekends for that very reason. However, the solution shouldn't involve arresting people in parking lots. It's the street that is crowded.

[Double Tap]

Everyone keeps stating that these were teenagers that got arrested. Yet I have heard of several folks that were arrested that were older than that. Some were much older. One fella called into Jon Mathews show yesterday was 40 and his wife was 37. They were both arrested as they pulled into Sonic to get a shake. HPD was going to take their child that was also in the car, until the man convinced them to let him call his parents to come and get the child.

Do you know of any break down in the ages of the arrestees?

Also, Sonic was not allowing the cops and vultures to tow cars of customers out of their lot. Seems Sonic did not like what was going on either.

[Ramius]

This sounds a little extreme, but if it has gotten anything close to what it was like back then, something needed to be done. Traffic should move on the busiest streets in town!

True, sometimes the weekend night "cruising" stuff gets out of hand. Some reasonable measures can and should be taken to make sure that traffic can move.

The problem with tactics like this is that they can be counterproductive. Kids must respect law enforcement officers, but these kinds of tactics (and the case of the driver's ed car from my above post) only demonstrate to these kids that the "Law" is capriciously enforced and is not to be respected. It makes the Law a buffoon. In the driver's ed case, the teacher was even trying to use it as an opportunity to teach the other kids in the car about being respectful toward the police, but the cop pushed it so far over the top that his credibility was completely lost. Those kids, unfortunately, lost all respect for cops in the incident.

[Ramius]

That's true. It started out as a parking-log purge of the teenagers that were apparently hanging out there. It escalated though until they apparently just rounded up *everybody* in the lot. Teenagers, KMart customers, Sonic customers... everybody. The first reports made it sound like there were something like 450 arrested, though later reports toned it down to "only" 250 or so.

[Dog Gone]

I heard that same call, and posted an account of it here.

Nobody has seen a list of the names and ages of those arrested, but nearly all were over the age of 18. I'm guessing that most were in the 18-22 range, but there isn't a lot of video available on the raid.

There were several older folks, like the guy who called in to the station yesterday, who were merely trying to get to one of the businesses and spent the night in jail, instead.

[HairOfTheDog]

What was that cops name? I remember who you are talking about... Pulled (our) mom over once in front of the high school. Walked up to the car and said [surprised] "Oh, I thought you were a kid" and let her go.

Haven't read the whole thing yet... this sounds like the same scene as the 7-11 way back when.

[Lockbox]

I'm Pissed!.

I'm all for law and order, but this was uncalled for. Now the City of Houston will be sued and the Taxpayers will fund the settlement.

Thank you Lee. P. Brown, AKA, Out-of-town Brown for screwing up and making me pay for it. Now we get the STUPID Treatment from Government, no one knows who authorized, no one knows who’s in charge, no one knows what happened, no one knows anything! All the while, taxpayers pay for this STUPIDITY. In the end the stupidity costs the taxpayers. Did the taxpayers cause the problem? Then why do they have to always pay for Government’s mistakes.

Where do I send the bill when I screw up? I pay for my mistakes, the individuals in charge should also personal pay for their’s! Stop wasting my money!

We need a system where government is responsible, or we need a system where no one is responsible. This is just what GW Bush is fighting with the Congress about Federal Security workers, the ability to fire someone for mistakes. A foreign concept for Government!

[i_dont_chat]

I agree with your assessment, tallhappy. I am a Houstonian and unless one has encountered a large group of out-of-control teenagers at night -- you just can't understand the threat.

I belong to a fellowship which maintains a fellowship hall; a couple of years ago, our parking lot was singled out to be the popular "hot-spot" where teenagers gathered late-night to drink and socialize on Friday and Saturday nights (exactly like what they were doing on the K-Mart parking lot). On our property, it got so out of hand, that our
janitor was afraid for his safety and refused to "drive through" the crowd. On more than one occasion, bottles were thrown at his van.

What you folks don't seem to understand is how destructive and dangerous large unruly groups of young people can be. It is the mob mentality and if you haven't witnessed it, then you won't understand.

I remember in years past when the Police Department looked the other way when the Montrose Area was being used in the same way -- as an all-night gathering place, at first by only young people, but it turned into a freak show. It was very difficult for the citizens of that area and for the Police to finally put a stop to the Montrose circus.

In my opinion, this attempt to arrest those trespassing on K-Mart's parking lot was a wise move and nipped this in the bud before people and property were hurt. Instead of giving the Police a bad time, we should be thanking them.

If there were errors made, the people will have their day in court. If I had to chose between who to trust, I'd trust the Police and our Judges before I'd trust a mob/gang/group of teenagers out milling around in the middle of the night.
You are welcome to blast me for this opinion, but unless you've experienced teenage crowds out of control, you won't understand.

[Ramius]

Yep... same guy, though I'm not getting recall on his name. He was a real buttmunch though.

[Ramius]

You are welcome to blast me for this opinion, but unless you've experienced teenage crowds out of control, you won't understand.

OK, I will, I have, and I do.

In your case, there were laws being broken that the police could and should lawfully enforce.

In this case there is no evidence that any laws were being broken. The teenagers were on private property and the owner had not filed a complaint.

If KMart had called the cops, I would be in complete agreement with you. But they did not. Until they do the cops have no basis to come in and start rounding people up. That's the way it should be.

[Thud]

I hope you live in Houston so you can pay for this.

[Double Tap]

What you folks don't seem to understand is how destructive and dangerous large unruly groups of young people can be. It is the mob mentality and if you haven't witnessed it, then you won't understand.

We understand perfectly. The charges were all trespassing. Sonic was so stunned they wouldn't allow their customers cars to be towed. Does that sound like they wanted this raid to happen to you?

[Dog Gone]

Instead of giving the Police a bad time, we should be thanking them.

Yes, thanks a lot for arresting that businessman and his wife who were pulling into Sonic to get a milkshake on the way home from playing dominos with their elderly parents. Thanks a lot for yanking them out of their new Cadillac, because that obviously was a street racing machine. Thanks for terrifying their 5-year daughter asleep in the back seat. She was a threat to the community.

Thanks for handcuffing them and taking them to jail that night. I really appreciate that excellent police work. Oh, and thanks for mid six-figure lawsuit settlement you will sock the taxpayers with to pay this man and his wife for violating their constitutional rights.

Hoo yeah. Thank you Houston Police Department for this plan you worked on for months. A few more months of this type of excellent planning and we'd have had our own Tianamen Square.

[HairOfTheDog]

All they had to do was disperse them. Cops handle groups of teenagers hangin' out in parking lots every weekend in every town across America without this much trouble.

[Ramius]

Yup. As if groups of teenagers hanging out in mall parking lots is some kind of "new" thing. With cops that have the apparent judgement of turnips it's really lucky break that they didn't shoot anybody.

At least they didn't call in the SWAT team. Kudos to restraint, there. :-)

[sweetliberty]

Looks to me like it's "cover your a$$ and pass the buck" time.

[sweetliberty]

"Police sound to have done exactly what needed to be done."

If you believe that, you obviously haven't been following these threads and how this story has unfolded.

[sweetliberty]

"I just sent a couple of links to the Houston Chronicle stories on this to Bill O'Reilly at Fox, noting that this amazing story has not been picked up by the national news."

Excellent move Dog. A similar one to Hannity and Colmes might be in order too. They sometimes seem to compete on stories and I think even Alan Colmes would get his britches in a wad over this story. Perhaps I will do a follow-up email to O'Reilly as well. One thing I'll say for him, when he gets on a story it doesn't go unnoticed anymore, by anyone.

[justlurking]

You guys would have to post more info than this to make your case.

OK, how about this?

1. K-mart had complained to the police about non-customers hanging out in the parking lot (and had posted signs), but were told by police that only people refusing to leave would be arrested.

2. Sonic had never made any complaint and had posted no signs.

3. Police immediately blocked off the exits from Sonic, even arresting people that were in their vehicles, waiting for the light to change before departing.

4. One guy making a right on red as the police arrived was stopped, pulled out of his truck and thrown against it.

5. Some of the people arrested were customers that had just departed K-mart.

6. Of the 278 people arrested, only 42 were juveniles.

7. Almost everyone was arrested for criminal trespass, rather than any curfew violation.

8. One of the juveniles was a 10-year-old girl that got separated from her father amidst the confusion.

Is that enough? That's not even considering the complaints that had already been filed after a earlier raid at another location. The owners of that particular business have publicly stated that the police violated their agreement and plan to file their own complaint.

Liberal and leftists always say kneejerk that the cops are wrong and fscist. It is par for the course.

Fascists always say the cops are right, regardless of evidence to the contrary. That's par for the course, too.

[shuckmaster]

I'd trust the Police and our Judges before I'd trust a mob/gang/group of teenagers out milling around in the middle of the night.

If the stores are open in the middle of the night, then the customers teenage or otherwise, have the right to shop there.