Houston City officials seek to address the significant increase in violent crimes and murders that are spiraling out of control
What’s really going on in the City of Houston?
Houston streets have seemingly become a War Zone, and sadly, it appears to be open season on ALL Houston residents. How disturbing!
Homicide rates in Houston are worse than the largest U.S. cities, which include Chicago, New York City, which has a population of over 8 million people, and Los Angeles, which is nearly twice the population of Houston.
At the end of 2021, the Houston Police Department (HPD) released their unofficial murder count and disclosed that there were 473 homicides in Houston for the entire year. More disturbing was the fact that homicides had increased by 18% from the previous year (400 homicides in 2020) and that the number of homicides in Houston have significantly increased over the past three years.
According to Crime Stoppers of Houston, to date, over 600 murders were recorded in Harris County in 2021, which is a 70% increase compared to 2019 numbers.
So many families continue to grieve the loss of their loved ones due to gun violence, while seeking answers from community leaders about what could have been done to prevent the tragic outcome that has impacted them.
Within a week—yes, I said within a week apart—two separate shootings have severely impacted the lives of two 9-year-old girls and their families in a major way.
On February 8th, Ashanti Grant, 9, was headed to the grocery store in the car with her mother, father, and 11-year-old brother, when she was shot in the head during an apparent road rage incident that has left the aspiring young doctor in critical condition trying to recover.
According to Houston police, a GMC Denali pickup truck cut off the family’s vehicle several times on the northbound lanes of the Southwest Freeway in southwest Houston. The suspect driver got behind the family’s vehicle and someone inside the Denali fired shots toward the vehicle, striking Ashanti, who was the only one injured. According to HPD, they only had vague descriptions of the suspects being a Hispanic man with short hair as the driver and possibly a Hispanic woman as the passenger.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced a $30,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspect in the girl’s shooting, as they still have not been identified or apprehended.
Then on February 14th, another 9-year-old girl was shot while in the vehicle with her family. However, this young child didn’t survive.
Arlene Alvarez, 9, was tragically shot by Tony D. Earls, who was with his wife at a bank ATM drive-thru when an unknown male robbed them. Earls first shot at the robbery suspect, who was fleeing on foot, and then began firing shots at the pickup truck that Arlene was in because he thought the robbery suspect had gotten into that vehicle to get away.
According to investigators, Arlene was sitting in the backseat of the vehicle carrying her and four other family members, when she was struck with the unsuspecting bullet. Arlene was transported to an area hospital where she was later pronounced dead.
Earls was subsequently arrested and charged with aggravated assault—serious bodily injury in the 263rd State District Court, while the unknown robbery suspect, who was captured on surveillance video, remains at large.
The surveillance video of the suspect wanted in the investigation was posted on the HPD YouTube channel and can be seen here at: https://youtu.be/Pjd9iD9HjR8.
The suspect is described only as a dark-skinned black male with a thick build and full eyelashes.
Anyone with information on the identity of the suspect in the surveillance video or on his whereabouts is urged to contact the HPD Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or speak anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
Overall, it isn’t just homicides that have been on the rise in Houston—other forms of crime and violence have also been on the rise, and most of them involve the use of a firearm.
This past week, five people were shot outside of Spivey’s Bar and Grill, located in Houston’s historic Third Ward community.
According to investigators, five people, including the club bouncer, were shot after a fight spilled out from inside the club into the streets after the parties involved were told to leave. The shooting suspects, who are being described by police as a black male and a Hispanic male, fled the scene after pulling out their guns and shooting the victims.
All the shooting victims are expected to survive, but police are looking at surveillance video to see if they can get a better description of the suspects.
Anyone with information in this case is urged to contact the HPD Major Assaults and Family Violence Division at (713) 308-8800 or Crime Stoppers at (713) 222-TIPS.
Several grassroots leaders believe that mental health and other factors play a major role in what we are seeing relative to increased violent crimes in Houston.
Longtime community activist, Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, believe that the crime wave is solvable, but that it is going to require an all-hands on deck approach to address it.
“We have to become a collective thermostat and set the temperature of the community rather than a thermometer only reporting the temperature of the problems in the community,” said Dr. Muhammad. “Every sector of our city has been impacted by the pandemic, economic
uncertainty, political partisanship, and now we are being gripped by fear, hopelessness, and anger over crime. We need a paradigm shift toward faith, hope, and action. All hands-on deck!”
Reginald Gordon, founder of Operation Outreach Original Group One (OG1), says that more resources must be dedicated to deal with the internal aspects of what many of these individuals committing these violent crimes are facing.
“What we are dealing with are years of trauma, and denying the effect that trauma has on broken families and broken people,” said Gordon. “If we don’t invest more resources towards mental health therapists and psychologists, instead of police, then the problem will continue to get worse every year.”
Community advocate Quincy Moore Sr. believes that we must engage the youth and serve as an example for them to see that we have the power to change our current conditions surrounding crime and violence in the streets.
“The absence of hope provokes the undeveloped mind to manifest violence and criminal behavior,” said Moore. “We have to teach our youth that they are more than what their environment promotes them to be. We have to be the change if we want to see change.”
So, where do we go from here?
We have a Texas State Legislature that has made it easier for anyone 21 years and older to carry a weapon without a license or permit, along with an uptick in violent crimes and homicides.
Some say we have too many guns on the streets, and some say that we have too many criminals out on the streets. Who is right and who is wrong? At this point, what matters is how it is addressed.
Earlier this year, local law enforcement agencies announced they were providing additional resources to Crime Stoppers of Houston to address the rising homicide rates compared to several years ago.
As the leading public safety non-profit in Texas, Crime Stoppers of Houston recently unveiled a new project called the Safe Community Institute to address crime in Harris County. The Safe Community Institute will focus on the Safe Community program, ‘The Balanced Voice’ podcast, and a new research center that will look at hard data and statistics to better understand what’s driving crime.
This past Monday, residents in Houston’s Third Ward, Mayor Sylvester Turner, Houston Police Department (HPD) Chief Troy Finner, and many other community stakeholders gathered at Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church to discuss coming together as a community to address the uptick of violent crime in Houston.
Earlier this month, the City of Houston announced a new plan called “One Safe Houston” to try and decrease the number of violent crimes. The $44 million plan uses several strategies, including an initiative that allocate $5.7 million towards adding 125 HPD officers to city streets per day who will work overtime.
The initiative will also devote money towards hiring 15 new park rangers to patrol city parks, creating jobs for youth, and implementing a new illegal gun buyback program.
It appears that this recent increase in crime is forcing the City of Houston and all of its stakeholders and community leaders to come together and take a hands-on approach to address this ever-increasing pandemic of violence before it is too late, and more people become victims.