Results tagged “houstonpolicedepartment”

Good morning, Houston. Looks like there's another tropical disturbance out in the Gulf of Mexico — this one is called Invest 90L, and it looks like it could be headed for the upper Texas coast. The Chron's Eric Berger is keeping an eye on the system, which is located west of Florida and is headed in a general northwesterly direction; Berger reports that it could become a tropical storm by tomorrow, but isn't likely...

We noticed a news story yesterday afternoon about a 5-year-old boy who was reportedly in a woman's car when it was stolen from a north Houston gas station — but it turns out that the woman's report was totally fabricated, and now she may face misdemeanor charges. Marissa Aguillar, 29, initially reported that her son, Jordan Rodriguez, was in her gold Chevrolet Impala that was stolen while she was getting gas at the Exxon station...

It looks like the Houston Police Department is ready to get more serious about it's problem with drunk drivers. At a news conference today, HPD Chief Harold Hurtt unveiled a new van that will help catch drunk drivers.

We're sure glad that City Council isn't our mom - they're strict. Yesterday, the council decided in an 11-3 vote that children 16 and under must be off the streets by 11 pm on weeknights. The previous curfew was midnight, which still applies to Fridays and Saturdays. There are a number of exceptions, including children who are accompanied by a parent or participating in school or church-sponsored events. Those delinquents who violate the rule will...

Instant karma can be rough sometimes: Take, for example, the man who was killed last night while trying to run away from a hit-and-run accident he reportedly caused. It happened at about 11:30 p.m. on Telephone Road in southeast Houston, where a pickup truck rear-ended an SUV stopped at a red light. The pickup drove off and a witness in another vehicle followed it to the South Loop, where the pickup driver and a passenger...

The Texas First Court of Appeals overturned community activist Quanell X's conviction for evading arrest yesterday — and now Quanell X said he's going to sue the city of Houston.

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...

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...

So you know what today is, right? If you answered "the first day of school," go to the head of the class: HISD's more than 210,000 students will be headed back to school today, and though Houstonist (thankfully) no longer has to load up our Trapper Keeper and trudge off to class, we do have to worry about something else now that we're all grown up: school zones. Specifically, not speeding through them, as KHOU advises against doing:

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...

HPD Chief Harold Hurtt is starting to respond to the complaints leveled against him in the police officers' union survey, saying officers were mistaken in calling him an overly strict disciplinarian. As a matter of fact, KHOU reports, he's practically a lovable old teddy bear in a uniform:

, that's impressive.

HPD Chief Harold Hurtt avoided a crash yesterday, and a group of his supporters are trying to help him avoid another one — the one that could be headed his way when the results of a police union survey come down. The survey, you'll remember, found that 75 percent of respondents said they had little or no confidence in Hurtt's ability to lead HPD. About 2,300 officers responded to the Houston Police Officers' Union survey,...

The responses to a police union survey of HPD management are in, and though the final results won't be announced for a few days, a preliminary look from KHOU showed little love for Chief Harold Hurtt.

A proposal to tighten the city's midnight curfew for juveniles is a step closer to becoming law: Yesterday, the City Council's Public Safety Committee approved the proposed ordinance, meaning it will likely be up for a full council vote next month — with Mayor Bill White's support. The proposal would institute a 10 p.m. weekday and 11 p.m. weekend curfew for kids younger than 17; those 17 and older wouldn't be subject to the law....

The Chronicle reports this monring that five surveillance cameras will be installed on and near Main Street this fall — a move that could be the beginning of a citywide camera program, if HPD has its way. The initial five cameras, which will go online in October, will be paid for by the Houston Downtown Management District, a group that uses downtown tax money for downtown development, so they don't need the City Council's OK....

After a three-and-a-half-year shutdown, the DNA secton of HPD's crime lab is marking a week of being back in business — but it's still taking things slow as it works to rebuild public confidence. The DNA lab was shut down in January 2003 after an audit showed it produced questionable results that could affect thousands of criminal cases; the lab recently got its accreditation back and is ready to roll with some extra safety measures in place. Now, all DNA examiners must have at least a bachelor's degree in biology or a related field and have to go through six months of training before they can start handling cases.

Houston's red-light camera system has gotten a boost thanks to a ruling by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott that clears the way for cities to install cameras at intersections controlled by the Texas Department of Transportation. The ruling means the city will probably toss the list of intersections it announced for the first 10 cameras earlier this month, since it will now be able to factor TxDOT intersections into its plans.

Only in Houston: Traffic was held up on the south Beltway last night when a runaway bull shut down part of the freeway for about 30 minutes. The bull was first spotted headed east near Sabo Road, just west of the Gulf Freeway, at about 11 p.m.

Even though local Islamic leaders are upset about an anti-Muslim sign found near a southeast Houston mosque — but it's not a hate crime, according to HPD. The sign, which called Muslims the enemy and included a drawing of the prophet Muhammad, was found leaning against a fence near the mosque in the 8800 block of Old Galveston Road. Problem is, the fence is considered public property, so police say it's not clear exactly who...

Today, The Washington Post becomes the latest national newspaper to cover Houston's growing crime problem, focusing on the apartment complexes in southwest and north Houston that have become hotbeds of trouble since the Katrina evacuation.

The Guardian Angels' arrival in Houston yesterday couldn't have been timed better: Just a few minutes before the community watch organization got to Sharpstown Mall, a group of teens got into a brawl outside a mall entrance, resulting in one teen getting pummeled on the sidewalk and shots being fired into the air. It's just the kind of thing that led Sharpstown resident Jeff Schmidt to ask the Angels to help clean his neighborhood up.

Faced with the problem of a suddenly increased population, a spike in violent crime and a shortage of police officers to handle it all, HPD has taken the logical step of trying to lure officers from other cities in Texas and beyond. Problem is, every big city in Texas is suffering from police shortages, so competition in these parts is stiff. "I'm sorry. it's business," said Lt. Kenneth Miller of the Houston Police Department's human...

Things keep looking worse for the embattled Houston Police Department crime lab. A new report Wednesday from an independent investigator said analysts in two divisions of the lay didn't report evidence that might have helped criminal suspects and made errors in nearly one-third of cases reviewed in a test sample. According to the report, the problems led to a "near-total breakdown" in the lab's DNA and serology divisions between 1987 and 2002. Among the findings...

HPD Chief Harold Hurtt confirmed yesterday that Houston's homicide rate has spiked this year — compared with 2004, it's up 24 percent so far this year and up 70 percent in the last two months. The majority of killings, Hurtt said, began as violent disturbances, mostly in and around apartment complexes. Over the weekend, Mayor Bill White blamed the increased crime rate on some renegade Katrina evacuees — sorta — but the police shied away from that in Wednesday's press conference.