Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt says Hurricane Katrina evacuees account for the increase in killings in his city.
The homicide rate rose 23 percent last year, and the largest increase occurred at the end of year. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast in early September, and homeless evacuees were scattered across the country. A large number ended up in Texas.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the increase continues into 2006.
HPD will begin tracking whether Katrina evacuees are the victims or suspects in all crime categories, Hurtt said. That decision is partly to help secure federal funds to pay for two overtime initiatives launched last year to target hotspots for criminal activity, particularly in the Southwest, he said…
Hurtt did not specify how many of the 23 cases are known to have involved Katrina evacuees as suspects and how many as victims, but a Chronicle review of homicides in HPD’s district 17 shows that both the victims and suspects were from Louisiana in the three evacuee homicides in that area.
I don’t feel like doing any research on this, so I’ll keep the editorializing to a minimum. (It’s Friday.) In the meantime, some NO evacuees are trying to make lives for themselves in Houston, but thugs in the ‘hood won’t let them. Blacks preying on each other. It’s the law of nature, I guess, for every race.
All power to the people!
