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Great. Just ended as I am typing this. Was a 40 minutes chase.

Forgive me, I did a search and couldn't find anything on this topic and that surprises me so maybe I missed a discussion somewhere. The City of Pasadena released the 911 tapes of the guy who observed two guys burglarizing his neighbors' house in broad daylight and went outside and shot and killed them when the cops didn't show up. There are more comments on the Chronicle story than just about any story I have ever seen. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5306638.html Seems that the slight consensus is that the guy is more a hero than a murderer, but personally I'm torn. I do think he did the right thing and I think if someone is going to be so brazen and disregarding of their fellow citizens as to break into someone's house in broad daylight and rob them, they deserve whatever they get. It's just wrong and a general lack of consequences - in all areas, not just crime - is what I feel causes a lot of the problems we have in today's society. That said, the guy was in his house next door and wasn't threatened at all (until he chose to go outiside and confront them), his property was not being taken, and he's recorded on the phone saying that he planned to go outside and "kill" them if the cops didn't show up, which is what happened. Techincally, that is a clear cut case of murder. I don't know what to think. I'm inclined to say he should be convicted of a lesser charge and do some probation but probably shouldn't go to prison. He needs to be punished, but not treated like a common criminal, either.

I know real estate agents have come across all kinds of crazy things in houses they're showing, but this is just terrible: Real estate agent finds body in Montgomery County home Yikes.

Cop got licked...literally. In the I cannot beleive-it-unless-I-saw-it-file, it goes. KHOU.com staff report FREEPORT, Texas -- A Freeport police officer took a licking this week -- literally. BRAZORIA COUNTY SHERIFF Ryan Halverson A suspect was charged with felony assault of a public servant after allegedly licking Sgt. Jay Newton on the face early Wednesday. Freeport's police chief said say Ryan Halverson, 18, was picked up for public intoxication after he was spotted beating on car windows and breaking beer bottles outside a gas station on Brazosport Boulevard. Sgt. Newton was searching Halverson at the jail when the suspect allegedly became beligerent and refused to cooperate. That's when Halverson leaned over and licked the officer's face, according to Freeport Police Chief Jeff Pynes. "We encourage people not to lick our police officers," Pynes told The Facts newspaper in Brazoria County. "We want you to like them, not lick them." Pynes said they are taking the incident seriously because "you never know what people are carrying in their saliva." Halverson is being held in the Brazoria County Detention Center on a $10,000 bond.

Below is the text from an email I sent to friends and coworkers. This happened yesterday in the parking lot at Nick's Italian restaurant on FM 1464 north of Safari Ranch. The getaway car was waiting at Safari Ranch. The moral of the story is to always be aware of your surroundings. I must live a charmed life. As if having Corinne diagnosed with leukemia wasn't enough to have a bad 2008 we had a close brush with danger yesterday. A not so nice looking fellow tried to carjack us in broad daylight in a restaurant parking lot in Sugar Land. I had seen this fellow walking along the shoulder before I pulled into the lot and thought nothing of it. As Jen & her cousin Lori were getting Corinne out I heard him yelling jibberish and thought he was just inebriated. Jen yelled through the car to me that he had a gun, sure enough as he came around to my side he was waving what looked like a .45 revolver but I could not tell if it was real. He was not pointing it directly at me and was speaking incoherently but when he said "Give me the ------- keys" I did not tempt fate as my first thoughts were about my family and threw them in the seat and said have them. As we backed away w/ Corinne, Jen's dad had seen the whole thing from the lobby and had already called 911. When Lori realized he had the keys and was not just robbing a purse, she insisted the gun was fake and her adrenaline must have kicked in as she bravely yet crazily went back over to the car. Opening the door and claiming to get a bottle for the sick baby, she then wrestled him for the keys as he could not get them in the ignition, he tried pulling the trigger but the hammer was not cocked, and he got scared and ran away down the road. One of the waiters chased him to the next parking lot where he got in a waiting car and sped off. This was @ 5:45 PM yesterday and all happened in less than a minute. All of us are safe & OK; I think Corinne only got upset because she saw her mother get upset. The sheriff we filed the report with said this was the second attempted carjacking in the area yesterday and was probably the same crew. The license # from the waiter was incomplete and could only say it might have been an old light blue Merceedes. I don't expect much to happen but you never know. Though I am happy I did not have to deal w/ stolen vehicle reports, claims, etc; and am glad to still have our car, and admit that a girl ended up keeping our car from being stolen, I do not condone trying to take on an assailant unarmed. I don't care how expensive your watch is, your handbag is, or your car is, they are only possessions and are replaceable. Your life is not replaceable, your safety and that of your family is what is most important. Always be aware of your surroundings and of those around you. I certainly did not expect this during the middle of the day and am usually pretty aware of what is going on around me, but will be moreso from now on. Please do the same.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/16451080/detail.html This neighborhood is right off 1960 and Falling Creek. between Walters and Stuebner Airline.

Pearland Police Department's new Crime Tracker: http://gisweb2.ci.pearland.tx.us/web/crime/index.cfm As reported by Robert Stanton at "Inside Pearland" So, I've been messing with for a bit. It's a little complicated and has a few bugs, but it's a fantastic concept. Seeing that little box on your street indicating a robbery will undoubtely make you more vigilant. Glad to see that the PD is embracing the power of the internet... It takes a few minutes to get the hang of it, but it's definitly worth it. Warning: this technology is not for paranoid people...

[AP] HOUSTON -- Prosecutors won't immediately seek hate-crime charges against two white teens accused of brutally beating and sodomizing a 16-year-old Hispanic boy, who was clinging to life after being left for dead, authorities said. The two attacked the boy after he tried to kiss a 12-year-old girl at an unsupervised house party Saturday night in suburban Spring, authorities said. The attackers apparently were offended at the age difference between the victim and the girl, who is also Hispanic, and shouted racial slurs at him during the 10- to 15-minute attack, investigators said. Authorities said the two dragged the boy from the party and into the yard, where they sodomized him with a plastic pipe from a patio table umbrella and poured bleach on him. "After they got him down on the ground, they stomped his head with (steel-toed) boots," Harris County Sheriff's Lt. John Denholm said. "They actually kicked the pipe further into him with the boots." County prosecutor Mike Trent described the pipe as being sharpened at one end. At one point, the teens tried to carve something on the boy's chest with a knife, he told CNN Friday. "I don't know that the very beginning of the attack was racial," Trent said, "but there's no question that they were venting quite a bit of hatred in their hearts." The boy was in critical condition. If he dies, Trent said, he would consider adding hate-crime charges so that 18-year-old suspect David Henry Tuck would be eligible for the death penalty. The 17-year-old suspect, Keith Robert Turner, is too young to be eligible for execution. Tuck and Turner are charged with aggravated sexual assault, which carries a maximum of five years to life in prison. They were being held in the county jail. If the two are convicted of aggravated sexual assault, jurors will be told during sentencing about the ethnic slurs used during the attack, Trent said. "Whether it is one or isn't a hate crime, and it may be, that will make no difference here," Trent said. "This is already a first-degree felony and it can't be elevated any higher. There's nowhere to go beyond this, unless the victim dies." The Anti-Defamation League wants prosecutors to add hate-crime charges even if it won't add to the penalties. "We want the public to accept and understand that this was a hate crime," regional director Martin Cominsky said. The victim lay behind the house for more than 10 hours before he was found and someone called an ambulance. The victim was a popular football player at Klein Collins High School who also posed for a fashion layout in the school yearbook, the Houston Chronicle reported. Charles Hinton, Tuck's attorney, did not return a call seeking comment. It was not known if Turner had an attorney.

The Chron has just posted an article about another homeowner who shot a "suspected" thief in his yard. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5340888.html Does this change anyone's feelings about the Horn story or vigilantism (is that a word) ?

This hits close to home, since I live in this area. Is this the apartments over by HP campus or the ones further down near Spring Cypress? http://www.click2houston.com/news/14369373/detail.html

Chron article Does anybody know, is this that church in the back of Greenwood Forest? Sounds like the perps are some real winners....

they just had an interesting story on 13 news. an amateur cameraman photograph massive gunfire in the louis shanks parking lot near some clubs. hopefully it will be on their website shortly. it sure did capture the attention of the harris county sheriffs dept.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/13974395/detail.html This hits close to home for me, since I work less than 100 yards from where this happened. If he was supposed to be at a scrimmage game, what was he doing hanging around at a parking lot getting into fights? Didn't sound like he had his priorities straight. The suspect was from Louisiana and killed the football player with a shotgun. It's sad that it always takes a crime like this to get these kind of people out of society. They really need to clean up that Trestles apartment complex. It's nothing but welfare recipients. They should end welfare completely in this country, but that's a different topic for another time.

article This sort of thing surprises me happening on Champion Forest. I know there was a car jacking at 1960 & Champion Forest not too terribly long ago, but somehow it seems a little less odd happening right on 1960. This, apparently, happened down Champion Forest Drive between Huntwick and Champions.

I recently finished a true crime book by Kathryn Casey called Warrant to Kill. It chronicles the 1992 murder of an Olde Oaks resident by a Harris County deputy. I was shocked as I was reading this; my family has lived in Olde Oaks since 1989, only a couple of streets away from Amber Forest Drive where it happened, and we had no idea. I mentioned it to one of our neighbors who's lived here longer than we have and they weren't aware of it either. Does anyone recall this taking place? The book gave the impression that it was fairly publicized around Houston at the time.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/13202851/detail.html They're here to work hard and make a better life for themselves. They're not a danger to U.S. citizens. It's all a myth. It's actually funny how much citizens complain about this issue, yet they don't do a thing about it, and they continually support federal, state, and local governments that secretly desire illegal immigrants to be here. Citizens of Houston probably think that the government is actually working hard to combat illegal immigration. They need to wake up to reality. Hopefully this news story will anger people in Pearland, but they'll likely forget about it in a week and continue to live with the status quo.

From CNN.com: Gunman opened fire at NASA building, police say NASA evacuated a building at the Johnson Space Center in Houston after a person with a gun was seen and a shot was fired, a NASA spokeswoman said Friday. Brandi Dean said it was not yet known if anyone was hurt. Local police were on the scene, she said. NASA spokesperson, James Hartfield, told CNN there were gunshots heard in the building. He added NASA security rules do not allow weapons on the property.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/12403099/detail.html This is a big part of what is making our city so dangerous (immigrant smuggling), besides poverty and the drug trade. They need to put these ****ers in jail. If Houston wasn't secretly in support of illegal immigration, maybe we'd have a safer SW side. By allowing illegals to stay here, you have immigrant smugglers everywhere. They store like 50 people in one house at a time as if they were animals. There's no telling how many illegals are in Houston if you can fit that many into a single house. You can't even cross the street in your own city now without being hit by stray bullets from immigrant smugglers in the middle of the day. Of course, this story will just get swept under the rug just like all the others that should be inciting people to action, but in this P.C. city, nobody seems to care. Unless our leaders and law enforcement take a stand to gut the city of illegals and immigrant smuggling, I'm moving to a city that respects the laws, national sovereignty, and human rights.

So some sorry mofos tried to steal my car from the Park and Ride. They didn't get very far, but still. So much for Metro's fancy new camera system. 100% Junk. Homer Simpson was right. "Public transportation is for jerks and lesbians". I am done with it.

Is this that same complex on Champions Drive that posters have been complaining about? link to story

I drive by this chunk of freeway-colored concrete twice a day. It's outstanding in its lack of architectural interest and how it proudly displays, not only a natural pavement/smog aesthetic on its skin, but also the prominent drool stains that draw the eye vertically. I doubt that when they designed this building the expected to produce this specific effect, however. Anyone know when it was built? I'm guessing mid/late 60s. There's some sort of boom lift or crane alongside it so I'm hoping that perhaps it's undergoing a spiff-up. If not, where are our city officials? Is that a parking garage attached to it? It's in a proud prom-queen location alongside the 45 DT, standing relatively alone, bridging 6th Ward and DT, and appears to be a sad wallflower instead. This building needs to be cleaned head to toe to enhance its blocky, minimalist lines.

If I'm not mistaken, this is where they stuck a bunch of Katrina people. Again, people who've no business being here, causing trouble, ruining it for everyone. Get'em out. Perhaps Champions can put some legal heat on the apartment owner/slumlord and get this place dozed. http://www.hcnonline.com/site/news.cfm?new...32256&rfi=6

Westside crime has Chamber buzzing 'Mattress Mack' is among those who say 'much more needs to be done' http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...ro/4127537.html By ROBERT CROWE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Crime may not have been on the official agenda at this week's Houston West Chamber of Commerce luncheon, but it seemed to be on everyone's mind. "This concerns all of us, especially when I've had my own businesses broken into," said chamber president Jeannie M. Bollinger. And when Bollinger asked Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale to discuss the issue, McIngvale recalled that the subject came up at an Astros game while he was talking to former President Bush and his wife. Barbara Bush, he said, asked: "What are they going to do about Westside?" Her hairdresser, McIngvale said, is afraid to go out at night. "When the first lady says something about it, we got a problem," McIngvale said. (Tom Frechette, spokesman for the former president, said the Bushes were vacationing overseas, so "I can't confirm nor deny" what Barbara Bush allegedly said.) In the wake of the Aug. 5 shooting death of a 64-year-old man, Rolando Rivas, who was killed while washing his car at 6 a.m. just a block from McIngvale's Westside Tennis Club, west Houston civic leaders say violent crime is getting worse. (continued on link) edit: Deleted copyrighted material. The Chronicle has asked us to not quote articles in their entirety. dbigtex56 robert.crowe@chron.com

I heard from click2houston.com that the Chuck E. Cheese in the Town Center was robbed and had to close down because of the robbery. Apparently someone just walked in waving a gun at everyone and demanded money. Does anyone know more about this? After what happened to that teenage girl, I'm wondering if it's still safe to raise a family in Sugarland.

in the Chronicle today