Results tagged “policedepartment”

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...

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market...

You just can't ask for a better way to end the week than a truck full of frozen chickens crashing into a car dealership. Admit it — it's classic, and it opens the door to all sorts of bad jokes: So, a chicken flies into a car dealership ... The accident happened around 1:30 a.m. at Robbins Nissan on Highway 59 near FM 1960. The driver of the poultry-laden big rig reportedly lost control of...

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.

Houstonist told you yesterday about the alleged "mob beating" that took place in East Austin on Tuesday, June 19th. Today, however, the Austin Police Department (APD) backed off of the troubling story, claiming that their initial press releases contained incorrect information, and that, according to Austin Mayor Will Wynn, "the city played a role in that." Additionally, as new details emerge about the murder, a new troubling element of the story seems to be replacing...

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...

Recently, Houstonist had been thinking about how it seems a long time since we had any Lisa Nowak-related news. And then, voila! — a Florida judge agreed to unseal certain documents related to the case of the lovelorn astronaut, and now we know some of the stuff she was carrying in her car when she made her infamous cross-country trip to intercept a romantic rival at the Orlando airport. Among the items in her possession:...

Sure, the space shuttle is going to be retired soon, but that doesn't mean NASA's astronauts won't keep us entertained — assuming, that is, that they keep giving us news like Lisa Marie Nowak. Nowak, you might know, is the Johnson Space Center-based astronaut who was arrested yesterday in Orlando, accused of attacking an Air Force captain in one of those bizarre love triangles we've heard about.

OK, so if you're a former cop yourself, you'd think you would be slick enough to avoid being arrested for a crime spree, right? Well, maybe not: Police have made an arrest in a string of Montgomery County bank robberies, and the prime suspect is a former HPD officer. His name is Raymond Martinez, and he's been charged with the aggravated robbery of a Wachovia branch in April; Sgt. Bryan Carlisle of the Shenandoah Police...

So let's be honest with each other: Everybody's had an embarrassing incident where they began the night with a lap dance and ended up with their most expensive possessions being carried out of their house while they ate breakfast with a stripper wearing a borrowed T-shirt, right? Anyone? Well, we know it isn't just us: One guy's already been through the same thing, and police say more may find themselves in similar situations if a...

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...

So here's something odd: Yesterday morning, two toddlers were found wandering naked along a League City street. The kids — girls, ages 1 and 2 — were spotted in the 400 block of Perkins around 8 a.m.; after some searching, police found the apartment where the kids lived. Their mom and grandmother were asleep, and the apartment was reportedly dirty and unsafe, KTRK reported: "There was food strewn about the floor of the apartment," said...

Three men, one from College Station (we're holding off on the Aggie joke, and you should too), one from The Woodlands, and one from Needville, were indicted yesterday by a Montgomery County grand jury on charges of soliciting sex from teenagers on the internet.

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...

We know criminals, in general, aren't always the smartest people out there — hey, when you're trying to plan a crime of some kind, the pressure must be such that it's kind of hard to make really good decisions. That's the only explanation we can think of for the guy who robbed a Baytown bank yesterday and then made an unfortunate choice of getaway vehicles: a bicycle.

So yesterday, we told you about the K9 cop that bit a girl at Madison High, and today, we have the unfortunate story of a 4-month-old boy who was attacked by his dad's police dog. If we learn that police dogs are conspiring to rise up and kill us all, remember: You heard about it on Houstonist first.

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...

We told you last month about Don Bauer, the man who put a tire from a Pasadena police chase up for auction on eBay as a benefit for Pasadena police. And then we told you about how eBay pulled the auction, then put it back online. And you'd think the story ended happily, but no — now the family of Kenneth Ray Pool, the guy police were chasing, wants the tire.

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.