On the subject of Katrina evacuees in Houston. There was a meeting with 1700 attendees in this west Houston neighborhood and when someone asked the mayor when the NO folks would be going home, the crowd started clapping. I know it is a minority of the new people who are criminals. The problem is NO was the Big Easy on Crime and so they had a big criminal class.
Car wash slaying frays nerves in west Houston
Residents want answers as crime seems to spread
By ROBERT CROWE, MIKE GLENN and MATT STILES
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Ground zero of west Houston's current crime scare is a car wash owned by a former Houston Oiler. It was here, Aug. 5, that 64-year-old Rolando Rivas was gunned down, allegedly by four teenage Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
Speakers at a recent Houston West Chamber of Commerce luncheon and numerous others at a heated public forum Wednesday night cited the slaying as the final, frustrating straw. Getting hard numbers on Katrina-related crimes other than homicides is difficult, but Mayor Bill White continued the tough talk when asked about the issue Thursday.
"Anybody who comes in here who has the intent to commit a crime," he said, "they'll know that in Houston, Texas, we don't tolerate that, and you're likely to wind up with a criminal record and in jail."
Searching for a solution
At City Hall, council members who represent the area acknowledged that constituents have complained about crime, particularly among evacuees.
"From my perspective, we have to find a solution to the crime problem. I don't know exactly what's causing it," said Councilwoman Pam Holm, whose district includes the venue of the Wednesday night forum. "Last night it was really clear that the community wants the problem solved, and we're going to be addressing it."
Jim Murphy, president of the Westchase District, a business alliance, said residents are especially frustrated because his group had warned city officials for two years about the need for more police.
"The manpower shortage was exposed when we had an influx in population and a demand for police services," said Murphy, who was at that meeting.
Houston Police Officers' Union President Hans Marticiuc echoed those concerns.
"The real 800-pound gorilla is the staffing," he said. "Everything goes back" to that.
Westside business owners interviewed Thursday said the neighborhood had its share of crime before Hurricane Katrina. But they link a spike in robberies, burglaries and street-level drug dealing to an influx of evacuees into low-income apartments.
"It's not like this was a sacred place," said a convenience store owner who would identify himself only as Sam. "My store was robbed before the evacuees, but I was robbed four times in December."
Concerned for safety
Rivas was ambushed about 6 a.m. at the car wash in the 11000 block of Briar Forest as his wife, Ivonne, witnessed from inside the car. At least one of the four teenage suspects shot Rivas during a robbery attempt, police said. Rivas pleaded for his life, saying he did not have money, but the men shot him and ran away.
Rivas, 64, a U.S. citizen who came from Guatemala 25 years ago, had become increasingly concerned about safety in the months before he was killed, family members said. He and his wife moved from their apartment of nine years after the dynamics of their old complex became more chaotic with an influx of evacuees.
"He was very concerned about his safety," said a nephew, Francisco Sotomayor, who lives in another Texas city. "That's why he was washing his car early in the morning. He thought it would be safer than doing it at night."
On Thursday, Sotomayor helped Rivas' widow move from their upscale, gated complex to a new city, where she hopes to start anew.
"I need to move away because I'm scared now," she said. "They have robbed me of my love and my security."
The day after the shooting, police arrested three suspects in connection with Rivas's death.
In the months before the slaying, the coin-operated car wash and nearby parking lot of an auto parts store at Lakeside Estates and Briar Forest had become a gathering place for young men who appeared to walk to and from a nearby apartment complex, said HPD homicide investigator Roy Swainson.
Car wash customers had complained that the men would approach offering to wash cars. When customers declined, he said, many young men would ask if they wanted to buy drugs.
The encounters sometimes resulted in armed robberies, said Jesus Delgado, an assistant manger of the auto parts store.
Rivas, he said, was a regular customer, and a friend.
"They had to kill someone for (police) to finally take action," Delgado said. "That's wrong when this has been going on since last year."
'We are the statistics'
The owner of the car wash, former Oilers linebacker Gregg Bingham, was among the irate speakers Wednesday night.
"I think you are a little late to the party," he told White and HPD Chief Harold Hurtt. "We know the statistics. We are the statistics."
Delgado and his manager, Ivan Amaya, think an increased police presence since the shooting has driven away much of the pedestrian traffic, but they still see young men gathering when police are not around.
Swainson said the suspects in custody and a fourth still at large are all Katrina evacuees. The young men were taken into custody the day after the slaying, based on a tip.
The oldest suspect, Joseph Wilson, 18, has been charged with aggravated robbery.
During an interview at the Harris County Jail, Wilson denied involvement. Wilson, who is black and wears his hair in dreadlocks, said he was nabbed simply because of the way he looks and because he walked up to the car wash while police were questioning a suspect in the slaying.
"They just took me to jail, and some of those kids said I was with them," Wilson said. " ... I think they got me just 'cause the way I look."
Wilson said he had been in Houston from New Orleans for just four days visiting family when he was arrested.
An incomplete picture
Citywide, Katrina evacuees were victims or suspects in 59 of 262 homicides between Jan. 1 and Saturday. Those crimes account for all of the increase in homicides over the same period in 2005.
HPD's Katrina-related homicide statistics, said Parnell "Herb" Herbert, a New Orleans-based activist living in Houston, paint an incomplete picture of evacuee-related crime.
"It's like we're double-billed in these cases," he said. "When an evacuee is killed, it's like they count that person as a killer."
HPD's homicide division maintains a database of Katrina-related killings, but gathering information about crimes other than murder involving Katrina evacuees is a challenge.
In some cases, the information is known only after a suspect admits to being a former Louisiana resident or when a reference to Hurricane Katrina is noted on an offense report.
"It's not an exact science," said police spokesman Sgt. Nate McDuell. "Some people do not admit that they are from Louisiana."
At least some of the crime increase in the west side can be attributed to Katrina evacuees, Marticiuc acknowledged.
"I don't think a day goes by that (officers) are not involved with them in some form," he said. "They are running into them on a regular basis."
Councilman M.J. Khan, who thinks the heavy concentration of evacuees in his southwest Houston district has led to increased crime, said his office gets numerous complaints about the issue.
Like the mayor, Khan thinks the overwhelming majority of Katrina evacuees aren't causing problems. But many constituents still blame them, he said.
"Many times, the perception is the reality," he said.
But he added, "Not everybody who came from Louisiana is a law-abiding, productive member of society. They were in the 'Big Easy' on crime. Now they are in Texas."
Reporter Anne Marie Kilday contributed to this report.
robert.crowe@chron.com;
mike.glenn@chron.com;
matt.stiles@chron.com
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