VIOLENT CRIME

With Houston having a higher-than-average crime rate and Harris County’s incarceration rate reportedly the highest in Texas, researchers at Texas Southern University are taking a deeper dive into understanding why and what’s working.

A violent crime initiative announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice will bring a new focus on prosecuting Houston’s most disruptive criminals and targeting gang members, who law enforcement leaders say are responsible for a disproportionate amount of violent crime in the city.

There are new questions surrounding the death of five family members who were killed in Centerville.

The ripple effects of a violent crime on the community are countless, and as the area grapples with a rise in violent crime, KPRC 2 is looking at resources to help those who are directly or indirectly impacted by tragedy.

Still in pain and recovering after being shot nearly three weeks ago, Anthony Perez, who spokes to KPRC 2 from his hospital bed, said he’s now paralyzed from the waist down.

HOUSTON – Southeast Houston considered by residents as a hotspot for crime and city leaders agree. On Monday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, along with police Chief Art Acevedo listed the southeast side as one of six hotspots that are fueling an 11% increase in the city’s violent crime. The city and southeast residents all agree on the driving factor. “So they take it out on other families or other family members.”Along with southeast Houston, the Westside, South Gessner, North Belt, South Central and Midwest neighborhoods also are listed as hotspots. HPD says this crime reduction program will not hamper their efforts to combat crime in other parts of the city.

A police officer engages with a protester Wednesday, July 1, 2020, in Seattle, where streets had been blocked off in an area demonstrators had occupied for weeks. Seattle police showed up in force earlier in the day at the "occupied" protest zone, tore down demonstrators' tents and used bicycles to herd the protesters after the mayor ordered the area cleared following two fatal shootings in less than two weeks. The "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest" zone was set up near downtown following the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Collective bargaining agreements for officers provide protections that stand in the way of accountability, even when the federal government is overseeing an agency through a consent decree, experts said. Contracts designed to ensure officers receive fair wages and benefits have spilled over into public policy. These examples bolster the hypothesis that some union contract provisions may impede effective investigations of police misconduct and shield problematic officers from discipline, Rushin said. The city entered into a settlement agreement, or consent decree, the following year and passed an accountability measure for additional oversight. One Seattle officer who benefited from the union contract in recent years was Cynthia Whitlach.

Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, right, speaks during a news conference Monday, June 15, 2020, in Tampa, Fla. Warren announced his decision not to prosecute dozens of protesters arrested on charges of unlawful assembly during a Black Lives Matter march on June 2. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)TOP OF THE HOUR: Florida state attorney won't prosecute peaceful protesters. State Attorney Andrew Warren in Tampa said that his office wont be filing charges against 67 protesters who were arrested two weeks ago in downtown Tampa. The prosecutors office will also work to expunge the arrest records of the protesters who were taken into custody, he said. In these unlawful assembly cases, there is no value in filing charges, Warren said at a news conference.

Now there is another, a still-growing American casualty list that has exceeded deaths from the Vietnam and Korean wars combined. Actual deaths from COVID-19 are almost certainly higher than the numbers show, an undercount to be corrected in time. It is well beyond what he told people to expect even as his public-health authorities started bracing the country in early April for at least 100,000 deaths. Unlike his emotional vice president, Joe Biden, Obama practiced his own kind of social distancing, to the point of aloofness. This, too, is not Trump's way.