Results tagged “bentaub”

Good morning, Houston. We're sure you're as excited as we are to get right into this year's news, so without further ado ...

Good morning, Houston. We heard a few weeks ago about a bat infestation at TSU, but now there's something else happening in the halls of academia: a bee infestation at UH. It seems 100,000 of the industrious little critters have taken up residence in the walls of the Cullen College of Engineering, but rather than exterminate, the university is planning to move the bees to a wooded section of campus. Beekeeper Mike Knuckley will...

Good morning, Houston. Have you ever wondered why our freeways have multiple names — for example, I-45 south of downtown is also called the Gulf Freeway, the section through downtown is the Pierce Elevated and the part north of downtown is the North Freeway? Yeah, we have, too — and it seems we're not alone: The Chronicle's Tex-Arcana column tackled that question this weekend. The answer? In Houston, at least, the names tell where...

Good morning, Houston. As you might have noticed, we passed the night sans Humberto — but our friends in the Beaumont area weren't so lucky. The sudden hurricane made landfall early this morning and battered Beaumont with winds up to 62 mph and Orange with gusts of up to 85 mph, the Chron's Eric Berger reports. From across Southeast Texas came reports of knee-deep water, downed power lines and damaged buildings, including an apartment...

What might be the world's shortest police chase ended tragically early Wednesday when a couple of suspects crashed an allegedly stolen van, killing one of them and critically injuring the other. It started around 3 a.m. Wednesday when someone in an apartment complex in the 5800 block of Fondren reported that a Dodge Caravan was being stolen; a police patrolman spotted the van leaving the complex and tried to pull the driver over — but instead of pulling over, the driver sped up. "The second that driver spotted the officer is when the pursuit started," HPD spokesman Officer Gabe Ortiz told the Chronicle.

You may remember that we talked last fall about the Texas Medical Center testing its buildings for the effects of stray current from the MetroRail line — electricity leaks that Metro says are inconsequential, but that observers worry could be weakening the foundations of nearby buildings, bridges, roads and other structures. Well, the preliminary results of those tests are back, and they show worrisome levels of current at three sites. Does that mean buildings are going to start crumbling? Well, no — not yet, anyway.

Houston State Rep. Borris Miles of District 146, used a pistol to shoot one of two men whom he says were trying to steal materials from the house he is building. The man was wounded in the leg, but it was not life-threatening. The incident took place yesterday evening at the construction site for his new home at 3742 MacGregor Way. Rep. Miles was reportedly repairing a leak at the new home when he heard...

Good morning, Houston. So, did you hear about the calf that ran loose along the Gulf Freeway feeder road near Clear Lake City Boulevard yesterday? As if there aren't enough things causing traffic on our freeways, you know? The calf apparently got loose through a hole in a fence, and it wandered along the feeder for nearly an hour and a half, eluding its would-be captors until it slipped back through the hole where...

More details on the story of Claudia Cortes, the 23-year-old mother in whose closet a newborn baby's body was found Sunday: The Harris County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled that the baby girl was strangled to death. Cortes, who was charged with tampering with evidence after she showed up at Ben Taub and insisted she hadn't given birth, though doctors found that she had, could face additional charges pending the outcome of an interview by...

When 23-year-old Claudia Cortes arrived by ambulance at Ben Taub on Sunday morning, nurses at the hospital noticed that she looked like she had just given birth — but Cortes insisted she hadn't. So police went to her apartment in the 5100 block of South Willow to check things out and were shocked by what they found: what seemed to be a full-term newborn baby was hidden in a closet in the apartment. Now Cortes has been charged with tampering with evidence and police are trying to figure out exactly what's going on.

It's hard to pass up a news item headlined "Houston police officer survives being shot in the face," isn't it? We guess that's what KTRK was hoping when it put that headline on a piece about a Houston police officer who was shot while questioning some guys who were jaywalking Wednesday night — but it turns out the situation wasn't quite as dramatic as you might think: It happened at Renwick near Bellaire. We understand...

Good morning, Houston. We're sure you've heard about the tornadoes that devastated the border city of Eagle Pass on Tuesday night, destroying buildings and killing at least 10 people. And now there's information on ways to help the people of Eagle Pass: State Rep. Pete Gallego (D-Alpine) has set up a page on his website with a list of places you can send donations, including banks and the San Antonio chapter of the Red...

Good morning, Houston. We're gonna be honest with you — it's Friday, we're ready for the weekend and we want to get right to the news. But first, there's something that's been bothering us all week: this thoroughly bizarre on-air exchange between soon-to-be KHOU anchor Lucy Noland and Fox News morning team Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy. Seriously, what's up with this? Ms. Noland, we can assure you that Greg Hurst will never use...

One teenager was killed and two were wounded in an apparent drive-by shooting in southwest Houston last night — and the mother of one of the victims was arrested after she charged at police officers at the scene. It happened shortly after 9 p.m. in the 8900 block of Beechnut, where the teens were walking with friends; an unknown number of suspects approached them and opened fire, hitting the three. One of the victims was...

A five-hour SWAT team standoff in Montrose early this morning finally ended just after 6 a.m. when the suspect, who had been holed up in a building at Montrose and Kipling, finally turned himself in. Police say the situation began just before midnight, when the suspect — 28-year-old Anthony Kroger — shot a woman in the cheek near the jawline; she drove herself to her home on West Gray and called the cops. When officers...

There was an unusual twist to the story of a potentially drug-related shooting in southeast Houston last night: As a man lay dying in an apartment complex parking lot, bystanders apparently stole a bunch of marijuana from the crime scene. The incident occurred at about 8:40 p.m. at an apartment complex in the 5600 block of Selinsky, just off MLK Boulevard; a witness told police she heard gunfire and looked out her window to see...

Bizarre news from Sharpstown Center: Yesterday afternoon, a security guard at the mall shot another security guard, then went to his car and shot himself in the head. Investigators are still trying to figure out exactly how it all started; fortunately, neither man died, and both are recovering at Ben Taub.

Good morning, Houston. We know what you're thinking this morning: "Sure," you're thinking, "this has been a pretty good week, but it would be way better if I got to walk through a giant model of the human colon!" Boy, are you in luck — a 25-foot interactive model of the colon will be at Ben Taub tomorrow. The Super Colon, as it's called, will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at...

Two people died early this morning when an SUV going the wrong way on the North Freeway hit a box truck head-on. The accident happened around 3:15 a.m. near I-45 and Little York; according to police, a Ford Explorer was heading south in the northbound lanes of the freeway when it struck a small Isuzu truck at high speed. "The speedometer of the Ford Explorer was stuck at 75 when we got there," HPD accident...

Wow, we guess Houston really does have a big-city mass transit system after all: Monday afternoon, a fight that began on the Main Street Square MetroRail platform led to a man slashing another man in the throat with a box cutter. In the middle of the afternoon. In the middle of downtown.

Talk about criminals who make unfortunate decisions: On Friday, two HPD officers shot a burglary suspect on their lunch break when they found him trying to steal their car. It happened at the Asian City restaurant near Deerbrook Mall; when undercover investigators T.D. Butler and M.W. Hamby (or, as KHOU reports, Handy) finished lunch and walked outside, they found a man sitting in their car. And things went downhill from there: "They ordered the suspect...

We've talked about plenty of incidents in which Metro buses ran into stuff — but Thursday, a bus was on the receiving end of a crash, sending six people to the hospital. It happened at Chartres and Franklin downtown around 1 p.m.; the bus was eastbound on Franklin when a dump truck northbound on Chartres reportedly ran a red light, broadsiding the bus. The impact sent the bus crashing into a car that was westbound on Franklin, then through a chain link fence, across a parking lot and through another fence. The bus hit a trailer, two pickups and a car parked in the lot before it stopped in a nearby driveway. Michael Taylor was in an artists' studio building that the bus almost hit; he described the impact for KTRK:

Police say they found the car used in the drive-by shooting of a Westbury High School student at a Fort Bend County apartment complex last night, and now they'll begin testing it for clues as to the identity of the people responsible for killing 16-year-old Julian Ruiz.

A 16 year old Westbury High School student was gunned down in a reportedly gang-related drive by shooting this morning, between 8:35 and 8:40 a.m. in the 5400 block of Dryad, adjacent to the Westbury campus, reports the Chronicle. The student was transported to Ben Taub Hospital, where "he died on arrival,'' said Evelyn Flouri, of the homicide division of the Houston Police Department. Police were not releasing the victim's name. Police told HISD superintendent...

An HPD officer barely avoided injury last night by jumping out of the way when a speeding SUV rammed into the back of his patrol car, wedging it under the back of an 18-wheeler. It happened at about 12:30 a.m. on the Katy Freeway at Heights Boulevard, where the officer had pulled the 18-wheeler over; the officer was outside his car when the SUV drove right into the back of his squad car.

Bad news from southeast Houston yesterday evening: Rodney Johnson, a 12-year veteran of HPD, was apparently killed by a suspect sitting in the back seat of his patrol car. It started just after 5 p.m., when Johnson pulled over a pickup with two people inside; a female passenger fled the scene, but Johnson detained and handcuffed the male driver. Later, Johnson was found at Randolph and Braniff, on the southern edge of Hobby Airport, shot four times through the plastic shield separating the front and rear of the cruiser. The 32-year-old suspect, Juan Leonardo Quintero, was still handcuffed and sitting in the back of the car along with a pistol believed to have been used in the shooting; Johnson was pronounced dead at Ben Taub.

A 57-year-old southeast Houston grandmother has filed a complaint against HPD, accusing officers of knocking her to the ground and injuring her while they were responding to a domestic violence call at her home Sunday.

Despite recent gentrification in Montrose, many of the problems that have plagued the neighborhood for years — homelessness, drug use, prostitution — still remain. And despite residents' attempts to change things, Avondale still experiences incidents like the attempted bust by undercover cops that ended in gunfire Tuesday night. So what's ahead? Well, it's not clear. The foiled undercover bust was being conducted in response to a number of complaints about prostitution in Avondale, HPD Capt....

An attempted prostitution sting last night turned into a gun battle between undercover cops and a suspect and ended with the suspect getting shot, another suspect getting away and no prostitutes in tow.

SWAT officers shot an armed man at a Hobby Airport-area motel last night after a nearly three-hour standoff that involved threats and a female hostage. It started at about 10:30 p.m. when police got a tip that the man, wanted on suspicion of armed robbery, was at the Motel 6 in the 8800 block of West Airport. Cops showed up at the motel, knocked on the man's door and got threatened: "Those officers and supervisors...