Katrina Killers, Keystone Chief

The news about the Houston crime wave caused by Katrina evacuees keeps getting worse, and the news reports more insulting to the intelligence. Today, the Houston Chronicle reports on the crime wave with the headline, "Police Chief Ties Evacuees to More Killings".

Katrina evacuees in Houston were the victims or suspects in 23 homicides between September and December, Police Chief Harold Hurtt said today, doubling his department's earlier numbers on how many killings have been linked to people from Louisiana.

We'll start with the headline. I know it's an evolving story and I don't read the paper every day, but the last time I checked, it sounded like the police chief here was doing his best to avoid tying evacuees to any crimes!

But who am I to complain? At least Chief Hurtt is now openly discussing the crime wave the New Orleans office of the FBI warned him about months ago. Let's say half of the killings were caused by Katrina evacuees. That means that only about a dozen Houstonians had to die at the hands of another city's criminal element before the subject became a politically correct topic of conversation. Have the gods of multiculturalism finally been quenched of their bloodthirstiness? I doubt it, but let us read the tea leaves anyway....

The 23 homicides account for nearly 20 percent of all homicides in the city during that period, according to Houston Police Department numbers.

According to recent estimates, Houston had about 2 million inhabitants before the 100,000 refugees arrived. This means that just shy of 5% of the current population accounts for nearly 20% of its murders. And here's another statistic matched blow for blow by the evasiveness of our Keystone Chief:

Citywide, the homicide total rose 23 percent last year, with the largest increases coming at the end of the year.

The increase has continued in January, Hurtt said, with the city recording 21 homicides to date, compared with 14 between Jan. 1 and 18, 2005. [bold added]

"It's not a good way to start the year, but we are also living in a city of more than 2 million people,'' Hurtt said.

While homicides continue at a heightened level, he said the levels of other violent crimes such as robbery also continue to be of major concern.

Well, he got that bit right about our year being off to a bad start, but.... News flash: We were living in a city of more than 2 million people in 2005 as well. Please quit tiptoing around this, Chief Hurtt! This solicitousness towards the Katrina evacuees is simultaneously a shocking callousness towards their victims and the unprepared citizens of Houston, on whom this pack of wolves was released without warning and hiding among ordinary people. (And, come to think of it, isn't it presumptuous to assume that a New Orleanian of an honest bent would feel insulted by officials warning his host city about his less-honest fellows?) Are only criminals deserving of etiquette anymore?

And then this takes the cake.

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.

"We did a pretty good job of keeping track when they were in the Astrodome, but did not once they dispersed," Hurtt said.

First off, while I appreciate the fact that the bean counters in Washington want to know the whether Katrina evacuees committed the killings before they will help pay for the extra police work, it pays to remember two things: (1) This is not an either-or proposition. ("[I]n HPD's district 17 ..., both the victims and suspects were from Louisiana in the three evacuee homicides.") (2) What of homicides resulting from Houstonians foiling crimes? ("A New Orleans evacuee was stabbed to death by a Texan who, police have determined, was defending himself from an attempted carjacking at the hands of the evacuee.")

But what really gets me is Chief Hurtt patting himself on the back for keeping an eye on a bunch of people (who, he'd been warned, would include a higher-than-normal percentage of criminals) cooped up in a dome, while acting so nonchalantly about the fact that he apparently pretended the problem would go away after the refugees were relocated from the stadium!

In an earlier post, I guesstimated that in the two months post-Astrodome, Houston should have seen, based on the influx of 100,000 evacuees and New Orleans's horrendous homicide rate, Houston should have seen about 9 additional deaths. In three months, this would be about 13. But it has been worse: We have seen "23 between September and December" (and many evacuees were not settled in Houston for most of September) and 7 "extra" homicides so far this month for a 50% increase over our normal homicide rate.

So why is Chief Hurtt still walking on eggshells here? Anyone knows that linking the homicides to the evacuation is not a blanket condemnation of all New Orleanians as gangsters, nor of all blacks as criminals, nor Chief Hurtt, who is black, as an "Uncle Tom". It wouldn't have been when the evacuees arrived and it certainly isn't now.

People's lives were in danger and no one would warn us (publicly anyway). So do the alleged sensibilities of a minority group supercede the safety of a city's citizens (about a third of whom belong to that same minority)?

We were not warned. Why?

It would be little exaggeration to say that our nation's state religion is multiculturalism, and that our public officials, far from being free of its grip, are offering us citizens up as sacrifices to its deities.

-- CAV

Related Posts (earliest at top):

Next Stop: Jail?
Has Crime Taken Refuge in Houston?
Two More Post-Katrina Murders
The Feds knew all along.