Results tagged “hpdsgt”

Good morning, Houston. Are you a local news junkie? Do you already know all the headlines we're covering here? If so, we'd love to have you: Houstonist is looking to build its news staff, and you're invited. You should keep up with what's going on in and around Houston and be able to put up a couple of posts a week, at least; some background in journalism is always a plus. If it sounds...

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...

Tragic news out of east Houston last night: A woman and her 2-year-old son were killed when their car slid into Hunting Bayou, just off the East Freeway. Adding to the tragedy is the fact that the accident could have been totally preventable — KPRC reports that the car went into the bayou when the woman, 27-year-old Asia Horn, missed the exit ramp at Federal Road and decided to try getting off the freeway by...

Police are still trying to piece together the events that led to a shooting on the East Loop yesterday morning, possibly the result of a case of road rage. The victim was 47-year-old Carlos Berdegues, who was found slumped over in his truck after the vehicle crashed into a roadside wall near Market Street between 6 and 7 a.m. Witnesses saw the truck weaving in traffic before it hit the wall, and that — not...

One person was killed and four others were injured — one critically — during a Southwest Freeway shootout Tuesday that police say might have been triggered by a rivalry between immigrant smuggling gangs. It happened around noon as people in two trucks headed north on the Southwest Freeway began exchanging fire; the two vehicles then exited the freeway, ran a red light and crashed into a car before the occupants jumped out and continued the...

The drive-by shooting that killed a 13-year-old Houston middle school student early Saturday morning was likely a case of mistaken identity stemming from a pair of gang fights, police said yesterday. HPD Sgt. Brian Harris said there had been two large gang-related fights at the Butler Skating Rink, 14083 Main St., where Cornisha McCowan and friends attended a dance Friday night. At around 12:30 a.m. Saturday, McCowan's brother-in-law, Sam Monroe, picked McCowan and his stepdaughter...

Police today are trying to make sense of a shooting last night at Poppa Burger, the venerable Near Northside burger joint — and though they know how the incident apparently started, they're not sure exactly how it ended. Investigators say the victim and his girlfriend were at the restaurant around 11 p.m.; while she went to the bathroom, he and another man got into an argument. When the argument was apparently over, the victim walked...

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...

Good morning, Houston. We're ashamed to admit that, on occasion, we succumb to road rage — especially when we're staying within the speed limit and other drivers get right on our tail, flashing their lights and acting like we need to go faster. We've often been tempted to slam on our brakes and show the tailgaters what's what, but according to the Chronicle's resident police expert, maybe we shouldn't: HPD Sgt. Steve Copeland warns...

Good morning, Houston. Remember all the hype surrounding Y2K? Well, it looks like we're in for it again, on a smaller scale: Daylight Saving Time will begin three weeks earlier than usual this year, which could confuse the heck out of computer software that was programmed before 2005, when the law changing the DST date passed. Call it DST2K ... 7. Whatever. Anyway, older software was programmed to change the time the first Sunday...

On the South Loop this morning, a story out of a dime novel: A dead woman was found stuffed under a motel room bed, and police aren't sure why she was there. The woman was found at the South Loop Inn at the Loop and Telephone Road at about 1:30 this morning; police say she had checked into the motel earlier this week and was with a man at the time, but that's pretty much...

Today, KHOU takes a cursory look at the number of people arrested for drunk driving in Houston and finds that it has dropped significantly over the last couple of years — from 6,120 in 2004 to 4,737 last year to 3,709 so far in 2006. A drop of nearly 40 percent is good, right? Well, maybe not. Houston City Councilman Adrian Garcia says one of the reasons for the decline is there are fewer officers...

Remember Michael Kubosh, the guy who told the world he was going to run a red light and then claimed the city was targeting him when he got a ticket for doing it? It was a botched protest against the city's red-light camera system, but now Kubosh seems to have gotten back on track: Making good on his promise to fight the cameras, he's planning to file suit to get the cameras removed. Kubosh, a...

Would-be criminals, here's something else to add to your list of don'ts: When you're fleeing the scene of a crime, don't come close to running down a police officer. That's a lesson one burglary suspect learned the hard way early this morning after an attempted robbery at a northwest Houston car stereo store. According to police, three men broke into Car Stereo Plus near the West Loop and West 18th Street at about 4:45 a.m....

Your chances of being caught running a red light just went up: The city's 10 newest red-light cameras go online today, bringing the total number of cams to 20 — not quite halfway to the city's goal of having 50 cameras up and running by early next year. The initial batch of cameras began operating Sept. 1, and since then they have caught more than 3,000 traffic violators, according to HPD: "They've proven what we...

We can't remember the last time we heard about a violent crime in a bread store, but there was a doozy in Jacinto City yesterday afternoon: After a nearly two-hour standoff, a man who had stabbed his estranged wife to death in the store was shot by police. There go all our illusions of safety while shopping for sweet rolls and buttered split-top. According to police, 27-year-old Mohammad Rafi entered the Mrs. Baird's store (which,...

HPD gave some details about the city's new red-light camera system yesterday, and now we know a couple of things about Houston's traffic signal scofflaws: A lot of them seem to be in Clear Lake, but overall, there aren't as many as expected. Since the cameras went into operation a week ago, more than 600 violations have been caught on camera, HPD Sgt. Michael Muench said. That's less than the 250 a day police expected,...

Details are starting to come out about HPD's new chase policy, which bars officers from chasing minor traffic offenders who refuse to stop and gives them the option of chasing major offenders, according to the Chronicle. If you didn't know there was a new policy, well, you're not alone: KHOU reports that it learned about the policy change when frustrated police officers began calling the station last night — there was apparently no official word...

The Chronicle checks in today on a slew of city ordinances that seem to be going largely — or totally — unenforced, including a ban put into effect last year on "pocket bikes," quick little motorcycles that councilmembers said were a nuisance and a hazard. Though riding the cycles on public streets was already illegal, City Council spent three meetings and hours of debate before passing an ordinance banning them in May 2005, a move...

You might have seen the news recently about how police cracked the case of a 2003 quadruple murder case in Clear Lake. The arrest of suspect Christine Paolilla was a huge break in the three-year-old case, and police say it wouldn't have been possible without two telephoned tips — one on July 8 from someone who knew Paolilla, and another in July 2005 concerning the other suspect, Christopher Snider. "[Getting the tips] was the key...

When Houstonist was little, we'd sometimes pretend we were things we weren't — you know, an astronaut, the president, a race car driver, Dr. Quincy. But we never took it seriously (except for the Dr. Quincy part, but that's another story). Seems some people never really grow out of that phase, though, like Weylin Spradley, a 25-year-old Houstonian who is pretending to be a security officer. Not only does Spradley have a fake police-type uniform,...