Results tagged “crimetracker”

Good morning, Houston. Have you wondered lately what Music World Entertainment founder Matthew Knowles is up to? You might never have guessed: He's releasing a new line of toys aimed at urban toddlers. The line is called Baby Jamz, and they're meant to be a twist on traditional kids' toys: "Think about it," Knowles told KTRK. "'Old McDonald' has been the same since we were kids. So what if we change 'Old McDonald' and...

When we saw that KTRK had done a Crime Tracker report on Houston movie theaters, our first thought was "Tinseltown Westchase." And it turns out we weren't too far off: the Tinseltown theater located at 3300 West Sam Houston Parkway saw the most violent crime last year, including one rape and five robberies. However, the AMC Studio 30 at 2949 Dunvale reported the most crime overall, but none of them were violent. Infractions included possession...

KTRK breaks out its magical Crime Tracker again to let us know where in the Houston area we're most likely to have our cars broken into — and the answer makes us want to steer clear of Cloverleaf for a while (which shouldn't be too hard). The east Harris County community was at the epicenter of a cluster of auto burglaries, Channel 13 found. And though police have targeted burglars in the area, they haven't been able to settle certain burglary hotspots: "Between Precinct 3 and Harris County, they've been trying to knock down certain areas, but when you knock down one spot, you have to go back around to the other," resident Richard Voumard said. "It fluctuates. That's the biggest thing."

We rang in 2007 with a mixed message about Houston's crime rate: Though the homicide rate reached a 12-year high in 2006, instances of other crimes decreased last year. Today, thanks to KTRK's mystical Crime Tracker, we know a little more about exactly how those stats break down — and in short, things are better in the notorious Fondren/southwest district, but not so good on the east side. The Crime Tracker found that the Fondren...

City Council took the first step Monday toward an ordinance that could restrict where registered sex offenders live, requiring them to live a certain distance from schools, churches and parks and preventing clusters of offenders from living in residential neighborhoods. "You don't have alcoholics living next to a liquor store, and you certainly don't want to have five or six sex offenders living in a neighborhood with children," Andy Kahan with the mayor's crime victims...

Houstonist remembers all the bragging downtown boosters have done on the neighborhood's low crime rate — which is great and all, but according to KTRK, things may be changing. Channel 13 busted out its magical Crime Tracker for a look at the downtown crime rate and found this:

You may remember when Metro OK'd a $20 million surveillance system covering all its park and ride facilities and one transit center, an attempt to fight crime at the locations. But, you may ask yourself, how much crime actually happens at park and rides? Well, thanks to KTRK's Crime Tracker, we have an idea.

Earlier this year, we told you about KTRK's amazing Crime Tracker, an ultra-sophisticated set of algorithms, star charts, chicken entrails and ancient Far Eastern wisdom that allowed Channel 13 to pinpoint when a purse-snatching might occur in a Wal-Mart parking lot — six months after the fact. Now KTRK's breaking out the Crime Tracker again, and this time it's produced something marginally more useful: a list of places where you're likely to be robbed around Houston. We call it marginally useful because the list is pretty generic — you're most likely to be robbed on a road, street or sidewalk, for example, so be sure to avoid those! — but the report also contains some interesting information.

It's easy to tell when we're in a sweeps period in TV news — all those sensational crime stories, all those pointless investigative stories. And now KTRK has adroitly combined the two with a story about purse snatchers targeting Sunday shoppers at three area Wal-Marts. Investigators analyzed reports of 17 purse snatchings at Wal-Marts on the North Freeway, the East Freeway and the East Belt, 85 percent of which took place Sundays between 11 a.m....