More we know about Kmart raid, the worse it gets

Houston Chronicle ^ | August 25, 2002 | Editorial Board

[Dog Gone]

A contingent of op-ed and letter writers to the Chronicle has taken the position that arresting 278 young people during a raid on a shopping center and restaurant parking lot last weekend was entirely justified because of the annoying late-night loitering and drag racing that had become typical at that spot. But the problem with the raid is not that police officers tried to arrest lawbreakers in and around the 24- hour Kmart Super Center parking in the 8400 block of Westheimer. It is with the contemptuous attitude police showed toward the citizenry by not bothering to sort out the good from the bad.

The people who so enthusiastically applaud law enforcement for shoddy police work more than likely would be singing a different tune if they or one of their children had been unjustly swept up in the botched raid and they found themselves spending all of a weekend day working through the city's criminal justice bureaucracy and coughing up large sums to retrieve their car from the pound.

More nettlesome than the irritation of being arrested for no cause, possible long-term consequences of a needlessly acquired criminal record and the potential for significant lawsuits that will have to be defended and settled with public funds, is the fact that the officer who led the Kmart debacle, Houston police Capt. Mark Aguirre, apparently has operated unchecked for years in this free-style arrest mode.

Police Chief C.O. Bradford says he has ordered an inquiry into the parking lot arrests. And Mayor Lee Brown has referred the matter to his Office of Inspector General. But Brown otherwise has been strangely quiet for a mayor who so heavily touted his extensive law enforcement experience during his three election campaigns.

The Chronicle does not condone behavior that is unlawful, or even just annoying, including drag racing, underage drinking, drug use, disturbingly loud music playing or anything else a bunch of kids hanging out late at night in a parking lot might be up to. But neither does the paper support police- state tactics that show an alarming disregard for the right of law-abiding citizens to to go about free from fear of sudden arrest.

[Northpaw]

Thanks for the additional info. Was there a history of these kids hanging out and K-mart and/or the police asking them to leave? If not, then the arrests were out of line. If so, oh well.

[pgkdan]

I thought there had to be more to the story than what I'd read in the editorial. Sounds like the people of Houston have a real problem on their hands.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I don't get it. I was sure that only Kaliforniastan was a jackbooted socialist cesspool, and that Texas was a shining paradise of liberty. What gives?

[Arkinsaw]

Am I missing something here?

Apparently. You should read the other threads which go into many of the individual cases and you will find that they were not "doing exactly that". Some of those arrested were merely customers at the Sonic Drive-In. Apparently a 10 year old girl at the Sonic was arrested and separated from her father. They were apparently not "loitering" because the Sonic refused to allow the Police to tow some of their customers cars after the arrests. One lady sent her son to the K-Mart to pick something up and he was arrested. A teenage girl was arrested as she returned to her car from buying something in the K-Mart.

This is not the first incident. A similar raid was conducted at a Hot Dog stand. A group of motorcyclists were arrested even though their trip to the Hot Dog Stand was a weekly event for 9 years. The people were not "loitering" there since the Hot Dog Stand people were not happy about their customers being arrested.

If you think that all this mass arresting is "OK" then your law and order gene is waaaaaay too strong for a nation whose fundamental underlying principle is individual liberty. We were tasked with keeping our government in chains lest it become a "fearsome master". If law and order trump liberty for you then there are a gazillion places in the world where that is the norm. But not here and hopefully never here.

[Arkinsaw]

Am I missing something here?

Apparently. You should read the other threads which go into many of the individual cases and you will find that they were not "doing exactly that". Some of those arrested were merely customers at the Sonic Drive-In. Apparently a 10 year old girl at the Sonic was arrested and separated from her father. They were apparently not "loitering" because the Sonic refused to allow the Police to tow some of their customers cars after the arrests. One lady sent her son to the K-Mart to pick something up and he was arrested. A teenage girl was arrested as she returned to her car from buying something in the K-Mart.

This is not the first incident. A similar raid was conducted at a Hot Dog stand. A group of motorcyclists were arrested even though their trip to the Hot Dog Stand was a weekly event for 9 years. The people were not "loitering" there since the Hot Dog Stand people were not happy about their customers being arrested.

If you think that all this mass arresting is "OK" then your law and order gene is waaaaaay too strong for a nation whose fundamental underlying principle is individual liberty. We were tasked with keeping our government in chains lest it become a "fearsome master". If law and order trump liberty for you then there are a gazillion places in the world where that is the norm. But not here and hopefully never here.

[southern rock]

I don't get it. I was sure that only Kaliforniastan was a jackbooted socialist cesspool, and that Texas was a shining paradise of liberty. What gives?

LOL! Please ignore the loudest chest-beaters among us. Some Texans, when bashing NY or CA like to forget that AUSTIN is our capital city. I'd rather live in NYC that AUSTIN any day (and have lived in both). Texas is great, however, once you get out of border range.

[southern rock]

Also, to alot of "law and order" Texan types (many on this forum), this sort of thing IS an example of a shining paradise of liberty.

[niki]

Raid on Kmart lot leaves shock, anger
Raid on Kmart lot leaves shock, anger
Raid on Kmart lot leaves shock, anger
Raid went to 'hell in a handbasket' Officers say Kmart bust was flubbed
Policing the police after Kmart raid
Raid at hot dog joint preceded Kmart bust
(Kmart Raid) Sonic officials say raid at restaurant unwanted
ACLU plans to file suit over Kmart arrests
Berry watched (Kmart) raid, but didn't question police
The plan that led to the arrests of hundreds of teenagers at Kmart, Sonic
Hard questions for mayor, police in K-mart debacle
More we know about Kmart raid, the worse it gets

[justlurking]

Was there a history of these kids hanging out and K-mart and/or the police asking them to leave?

Yes, there was a history of people hanging out there. But, there's no apparent record of them being asked to leave, beyond the "customers only" signs that K-mart had recently posted -- reportedly an measure promoted by the police to give them a pretext to act.

Had the police asked them to leave and arrested only those that refused, there would be no controversy. If they had not arrested people at the adjacent drive-in (who had not complained to the police or asked anyone to leave), the raid would have probably not have been considered a fiasco.

It's the HPD's heavy-handed tactics that are perceived to be the problem.

[Jonathon Spectre]

It's sad to see so many "law-and-order-at-all-and-any-cost" types infesting FR.

I'll protect and serve myself, thanks.

[niki]

Police union knows what went wrong, how to fix it

[Lockbox]

This is going to cost Houston citizens and the citizens of Texas millions upon millions.

You are correct, this is going to be a mess.

[SarahW]

Yes, you are missing plenty.

Many of the folks arrested for tresspassing clearly were not trespassing. They were clearly there to patronize businesses that were open and inviting the public onto their property (many still eating the food they had just purchased - or WERE ABOUT TO PURCHASE (watining in the drive-thru of the open business)

In such a situation, a business does have a right to ask someone to leave, but the presumption is that the public has a right to enter the property.

There is no tresspass if the public is invited, and not asked to leave.

[Ditter]

I heard that some of the kids, when they saw what was getting ready to happen, ducked into KMart & made a quick purchase & were arrested when they went back to their cars.

[norton]

I think you made my point.

[WFTR]

The over eighteen crowd would have a very minor hit on their records and a lesson to remember.

What lesson would I have "to remember" if I were arrested for stopping at K-Mart to buy something?

What's really changed is that even conservatives have ceased looking at law enforcement as applying to everyone and very, very, few parents believe that their kids deserve being tought a lesson of any kind; until it is too late.

How have I quit looking at law enforcement as applying "to everyone" when I think that I should be able to go to a department store and buy something without being arrested?

The lesson is that our society seems every day to lose more of its ability to distinguish right from wrong, harmless from harmful, and healthy from unhealthy. The lesson is that some conservatives in their zeal to punish those who may or may not be doing anything wrong are just as guilty of refusal to make these distinctions as those liberals who oppose punishment or even criticism of any wrongdoing. The lesson is that these "conservatives" often fail to take the time to understand a situation before endorsing this failure to distinguish between good and bad.

This situation is scary. I lived in that part of Houston for most of the past three years, and the only thing that could have kept me from being arrested in that raid is that I still don't shop at K-Mart because they had hired Rosie O'Donnell. What's even scarier is that some "conservatives" endorse this evil.

WFTR
Bill

[Leper Messiah]

Around the Tampa/St. Pete area the police handle these things by giveing out citations, sometimes by the hundreds. Very seldom do they actually hand out these citations, most often just showing up and turning on the lights gets everyone going, sometimes they do ask folks to leave. This was a few years ago (3-5 years), I'm out of that street racing scene now but probably they do it the same way still.

[niki]

bump

[WFTR]

The over eighteen crowd would have a very minor hit on their records and a lesson to remember.

What lesson would I have "to remember" if I were arrested for stopping at K-Mart to buy something?

What's really changed is that even conservatives have ceased looking at law enforcement as applying to everyone and very, very, few parents believe that their kids deserve being tought a lesson of any kind; until it is too late.

How have I quit looking at law enforcement as applying "to everyone" when I think that I should be able to go to a department store and buy something without being arrested?

The lesson is that our society seems every day to lose more of its ability to distinguish right from wrong, harmless from harmful, and healthy from unhealthy. The lesson is that some conservatives in their zeal to punish those who may or may not be doing anything wrong are just as guilty of refusal to make these distinctions as those liberals who oppose punishment or even criticism of any wrongdoing. The lesson is that these "conservatives" often fail to take the time to understand a situation before endorsing this failure to distinguish between good and bad.

This situation is scary. I lived in that part of Houston for most of the past three years, and the only thing that could have kept me from being arrested in that raid is that I still don't shop at K-Mart because they had hired Rosie O'Donnell. What's even scarier is that some "conservatives" endorse this evil.

WFTR
Bill

[norton]

Possibly or probably true today, my point was that things have changed a lot since I got busted in mass for rolling watermellons, drag racing, or copping a smoke between double features; or for minor tussles at the drive in.

That's as much our fault as it's the police's fault.

When you let law enforcement work, it is a lot less likely to turn into a general threat...and when you recognize meaningful "rights" rather than those we've made up over the past fifty years or so, you might be able to let law enforcement do it's real work.

(and my relations with police have never been what I'd characterize as good ... get along fine with retired police, it's the ones on the job that seem to resent my face.)

(finally, a note to the guy who thinks I'm Stalin: it IS a dicotomy (sp?) I support the police, but seldom enjoy the experience.)