Results tagged “chewpark”

Lawyers on both sides of the Ashley Benton murder trial are in court this morning for a hearing in which prosecutors were expected to say whether the intend to retry Benton on the original murder charge, try her on a lesser charge or drop charges altogether — or, perhaps, to accept a plea counteroffer from Benton's attorneys. Lawyers for Benton, who is accused of murder in the stabbing death of gang member Gabriel Granillo at...

Ashley Benton took the stand in her own defense during her murder trial yesterday, testifying that she didn't mean to hurt anyone when she went with friends to a gang "rumble" at Chew Park last summer, but doing nothing to explain discrepancies in her statements to police. "It was a bad decision on my part," Benton, 17, said of buying the $8 knife she used to kill 14-year-old gang member Gabriel Granillo during the June...

Testimony from a series of gang members continued Monday in the trial of Ashley Benton, the teenage girl accused of stabbing another teen to death during a gang fight at Chew Park last summer — but this time, a member of the gang with which Benton was reportedly associated testified for the prosecution, saying that he hoped doing so would protect him from retribution from MS-13, the rival gang. The Crazy Crew member, who calls...

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...

The first gang member testified yesterday in the trial of Ashley Benton, the 17-year-old girl accused of stabbing 15-year-old Gabriel Granillo to death last summer during a gang fight at Chew Park — and he told jurors that Granillo wasn't trying to run away from the fight, as prosecutors had said during opening arguments Monday. The witness — a 20-year-old members of Southwest Locos Salvatrucha, a Houston subset of the MS-13 gang, who calls himself...

Jurors heard opening arguments yesterday in the murder trial of Ashley Benton, the girl accused of stabbing a 14-year-old gang member to death at Chew Park near Montrose last summer. Benton — who was 16 at the time — was involved with the Crazy Crew gang, members of which got into a fight with members of MS-13, the gang with which Granillo was affiliated. Benton's defense attorneys told jurors Monday that she stabbed Granillo in...

Good morning, Houston! Are you a fan of Texas wildflowers? Good news, then: Thanks to a rainy winter, wildflowers are blooming across Central Texas and in parts of North and East Texas. If you're planning a flower-spottin' trip, check out the latest reports of wildflower hotspots — and remember, though it's really not illegal to pick bluebonnets, TxDOT recommends that you refrain from driving into them. Dang. >> Katrina fraud galore: The AP reports...

Good morning, Houston. If you have an outstanding municipal warrant, it's time to start watching out: More than 150 law enforcement agencies, including HPD, are gearing up to arrest you next week. It's part of the Great Texas Warrant Roundup, which runs for a week beginning Friday; if you don't take care of your warrant, KHOU warns, you risk "being arrested and embarrassed in front of family, friends or even co-workers." No, not co-workers!...

The recent driveby at Westbury High School and the stabbing of one Lamar student by another in Ervan Chew park in June aren't just isolated incidents, it seems. It's looking more and more like they're a trend, and a troubling one at that: both the numbers of teenage homicide victims and the numbers of felony-level violent crimes commited by teens are up significantly over last year. Thirty three juveniles have been victims of homicide through...

The recent spate of gang violence in Houston, much of it related to the violent gang MS-13, has convinced the Houston Police Department and the FBI to take action. The number of gang-related crimes in the first half of 2006 is up more than 5 percent from that number in 2005, reports KHOU, with an increase of over 92 percent in the number of murders. The new initiative will include 10 FBI agents, as well...

Ashley Paige Benton, the 16-year-old girl accused of stabbing a 15-year-old to death during a June 6 gang fight at Chew Park, posted bail and left jail Monday morning. She will remain under house arrest in a situation where her relatives can care for her and she can be home schooled, attorney Rick DeToto said. During a hearing yesterday, state District Judge Devon Anderson said she was concerned about reported death threats against Benton and...

Looks like Ashley Paige Benton, the sweet-natured, Bible-reading teenage girl her lawyer says was forced to stab a 15-year-old boy repeatedly during a gang attack in early June, is finding out murder is kind of a hard thing to deal with: a state district judge ruled Monday that Benton, 16, will stand trial as an adult. In issuing his ruling on the 16-year-old's case, state District Judge Pat Shelton cited the "heinous" nature of the...

Remember City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck's idea about running the University light rail line along the north side of the Southwest Freeway between Mandell or Dunlavy and Edloe? The one that would reportedly require the demolition of between 50 and 75 homes and part of Chew Park? Yeah, well, Clutterbuck says she's sorry for any confusion, but she didn't really mean she wanted to send the rail line through any neighborhoods — what she would like...

Not surprisingly, U.S. Rep. John Culberson's announcement last week that he won't support a proposal to run a light rail line down Richmond Avenue has sent Metro into something of a tailspin: The agency has now pushed the date it expects to recommend an alignment for the University Line back a few weeks while it conducts cost and ridership estimates for a variety of routes that would take the line from the Third Ward...

The latest in the case of Ashley Paige Benton, the 16-year-old girl charged with murder in the June 6 stabbing death of a teen during a Montrose gang fight: Harris County prosecutors said this morning they will seek to have her tried as an adult. A hearing on whether to certify her as an adult is set for a week from today: [State District Judge Pat] Shelton told Benton this morning that he bases his...

In an unexpected move Wednesday, State District Court Judge Pat Shelton set the trial date for Ashley Paige Benton, the 16-year-old girl accused of stabbing a teen to death in a gang fight, at Aug. 7. The date is barely two months after Benton reportedly killed Gabriel Granillo during an ambush at Chew Park, and it's far sooner than attorneys on either side predicted. "I anticipate neither the state nor the defense is going to...

The Houston school district could have done more to prevent Gabriel Granillo's murder at Chew Park last week, City Councilwoman Sue Lovell said — which, as you'd expect, made HISD a little defensive. Remember that Ashley Paige Benton, the 16-year-old girl in custody for Granillo's murder, attends Lamar High School and some of the kids involved in the ambush at the park June 6 were reportedly wearing clothing with Lamar insignia? Lovell says parents have...

A judge ruled today that Ashley Paige Benton, the 16-year-old girl accused of killing a teen last week during a gang ambush at Ervan Chew Park, should remain in custody because of threats against her. The ruling came after Benton's attorney, Rick DeToto, asked that she be kept in custody and away from other gang members so she doesn't get killed. DeToto said it's probably the first time in his career that he's asked authorities...

A driver was killed on the Southwest Freeway near Newcastle early this morning in a head-on collision with a driver going the wrong way Ashley Paige Benton, the girl accused of murdering a teen in this week's attack at Chew Park, should remain in custody on a murder charge, a judge said today A ride at Schlitterbahn Galveston was shut down today after people complained of becoming itchy after being in the water; officials believe...

Despite the allegedly gang-related murder of a teen boy in broad daylight at Chew Park on Tuesday — and the memories of crime that used to plague the area — residents of the neighborhood near Dunlavy and the Southwest Freeway say they still feel safe. Mostly. Over the last few years, run-down apartment complexes in the blocks around the former Dunlavy Park had been torn down and replaced with upscale townhomes. Older houses were restored,...

Police have arrested a 15-year-old girl in the stabbing death of a teen boy Tuesday afternoon at a Montrose-area park. The victim, Gabriel Granillo, and two friends were attacked by 20 or 30 people at Ervan Chew Park in what police say was a gang attack; even though HPD said it believes the incident was an isolated incident, they're stepping up patrols in the area just in case. Meanwhile, more details are merging about the...

A teenage boy was beaten and stabbed to death yesterday afternoon at a Montrose-area park in what police say was a gang turf war. It happened at about 2:40 p.m. at Ervan Chew Park at Dunlavy and Norfolk, where a group of teens were playing basketball. More than a dozen other teens showed up and attacked the first group with baseball bats, tire irons, bricks and golf clubs. The two groups were rival gangs, police said.