Addendum to a botched drug raid

Here is a link to the actual warrant for the botched drug raid. The article states that the warrant had been uplifted to Scribd, but when you check the link you will find that the warrant has been removed from the site. I guess there is a limit to Art Acevedo's transparency when the shit hits the fan.

According to the Houston Chronicle, the police seized 18 grams of marijuana and 1.5 grams of cocaine from the house. That's right, a little more than half-an-ounce of weed and little powder.

So here's my question, did the police kick in the wrong door or did they just flat out lie in the warrant application? It's one or the other.

What say you, Joe Gamaldi?

Anatomy of a botched drug raid

Last month five officers from the Houston Police Department were injured - four were shot - in a drug raid gone incredibly wrong. At the time we were barraged with statements from HPD that the police raided the house, shot the dogs and killed the residents, Donald Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, because a confidential informant told them the couple had heroin and guns in the house.

Joe Gamaldi, the head of the local police union, claimed the police had targets on their backs and that he was sick and tired of people claiming the police were the bad guys. He even threatened to keep tabs on those who criticized the police. Woo-hoo! Over here, Joe!

The local media - never ones to look too deeply into any story involving the police - ate it up. The local media never once questioned the reliability of the informant or the rationale behind a "dynamic" entry.

But there was a problem. There was no heroin in the house. There was a small amount of marijuana and cocaine. There were rifles and shotguns, but there was no evidence that they were obtained illegally.

Neighbors and relatives told anyone who would listen that neither Mr. Tuttle nor Ms. Nicholas were involved in the drug trade. Neither had any convictions for drug activity. Neither had any convictions for violent behavior.

Police Chief Art Acevedo (doing his best to play a prevent defense) told the media that police had received a tip from an anonymous called that there were guns and heroin inside the house. Police then sent their informant into the house to get some heroin. They claim he came out with the drug and a tale the house was a veritable Wal-Mart of heroin.

If anyone knows how this shit works in Houston, it should come as no surprise that the officers went to a judge in the municipal courthouse (where the primary business of the day is traffic court) to find a judge who would sign the warrant without asking any pesky questions about probable cause or the need for a "no-knock" warrant. Needless to say, they found a very pliant judge on Lubbock Street.

Since the jump-out boys were from narcotics, no one was wearing bodycams at the time of the raid. I get it. The last thing the police want the public to see is just how much of a shit show these raids turn into.

And now an unnamed officer involved in the raid has been relieved of duty pending an investigation into the botched raid.

For those of y'all keeping score on this, the search warrant said the police believed that heroin and handguns would be found in the house. Neither were.

If anyone out there has any delusion that the police follow a rigid procedure in obtaining evidence, drafting a warrant application and discussing with a judge why the warrant needs to be served, you may now put your glasses back on and witness just how this process works.

In reality the warrant applications filed by the police - and prosecutors - are fill-in-the-blank cookie-cutter forms where the affiant cuts and pastes the basis of his suspicion. This suspicion can rarely be backed up by anything resembling articulable facts. These affidavits are presented to judges who preside over traffic courts who sign them without raising any questions.

The result is what happened in Houston last month. This should be Exhibit A in a lesson as to why the war on drugs has been an abject failure.

See also:

Blakinger, Keri, et al. "Houston police officer connected to deadly raid, shootout relieved of duty," Houston Chronicle (2/8/2019)

Reigstad, Leif, "A no-knock raid in Houston led to deaths and police injuries. Should police rethink the process?" Texas Monthly (2/12019)

Blakinger, Keri and Stephen Tucker Paulson, "Police identify powder recovered in deadly drug raid" Houston Chronicle 2/2/2019)

Whips, chains and Racehorse Haynes

Hey, I've pitched this podcast before - and if you're not listening to it yet, you need to. The current episode of Criminal is about our own Richard "Racehorse" Haynes. The episode contains local attorney, and former President of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, Chris Tritico, recounting some of the more epic stories of Racehorse.

Phoebe Judge is the host and is a wonderful interviewer. She never gets in the way of the story.

Give it a listen.

For more information on the John Hill case, you can read Thomas Thompson's book, Blood and Money.

If you're curious about the T. Cullen Davis case, you can read Gary Cartwright's Blood Will Tell.

Judge finds that City destroyed evidence in jail litigation

Quick. What is the worst thing you can do when you are the defendant in a multi-million dollar lawsuit alleging you held people in jail for longer than 48 hours before letting them see a magistrate?

If you answered "destroy evidence of your violations," you are correct!

US District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt entered a finding last week that the City of Houston destroyed evidence. The city is fighting a lawsuit that alleges people were subjected to warrantless arrests and held in the city jail for more than 48 hours before being taken before a magistrate to determine whether there was probable cause to hold them.

The evidence in question was wiped from the computer hard drives of top HPD officials.

City officials blame the problem on the bottleneck in the county jail that prevented detainees in the city jail from being transported to the county facility. But, nonetheless, the order from the court told officials that people arrested without a warrant were to be taken before a magistrate within 48 hours or they were to be released.

In issuing his order, Judge Hoyt isn't accusing the city of deliberating destroying evidence in order to gain an advantage at trial, but the order does mean that a jury will receive an instruction that they are to infer that the city deliberately destroyed evidence, that the city knowingly held people for more than 48 hours without seeing a magistrate and that the city acted with deliberate indifference to the fact they were violating people's constitutional rights.

That, my friends, is a killer instruction in a civil case. It's a way of a judge telling the defendant that it might be time to work out a settlement because the verdict could be messy.

There are two things that stick out about this ruling. The first is that it was made in the first place. Anyone who has practiced law knows that evidence gets destroyed, lost or misplaced - and not necessarily by design. The hard part is trying to prove it happened. If you never had the evidence in your hands or you never saw the evidence beforehand, it can be damn near impossible to prove it ever existed.

Generally one finds out about the loss of evidence because someone involved in, or with knowledge of the destruction, comes forward. Sometimes you find out that evidence in your case has been destroyed or lost because of testimony in an unrelated case in which evidence was lost or destroyed.

In this case I would speculate that either someone inside the police department came forward and told someone involved in the lawsuit about wiping the hard drives or someone on the plaintiff's side already had copies of documents that were later destroyed and put two and two together when the city didn't produce the documents during discovery. But, again, I'm just guessing.

The second thing that sticks out about the ruling is just how rare it is for a court to issue such a ruling. If the evidence was destroyed for innocent reasons or if the evidence was just lost, a court will not issue the instruction. In order to issue the instruction the court must find that the party that lost or destroyed the evidence had a legal duty to preserve it, whether the loss or destruction of the evidence breached that duty and whether the breach harmed the other party.

Now it looks like taxpayers are going to be the ones paying for the actions of the police department.

Someone has an awful lot of 'splaining to do about this one.

It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood

My wife pointed out the following post on some local community website for our neighborhood. Now first I have to set the table for what you're about to read.

We live in a part of Houston called Spring Branch. It's on the westside of town between the Loop and the Beltway. Inside the area are a series of bedroom communities filled with rich white folk who would swear up and down they aren't racist but they want to make sure their kids go to the white "right" schools. We live in an older area with some wealthy teabaggers, "middle class" families and working class folks. As Spring Branch has gotten "less white" over the past 30 years, those on the right end of the political spectrum have move further to the right in their futile attempt to return the area to some mythic state in the past.

Having said that, I like the area. It's a mix of industrial, business and residential. You can find just about any kind of cuisine you want and there's is still green space around.

Now you can read the post:

The Kerrwood Watch got another one yesterday. Spring Valley police chased a vehicle until it t-boned another vehicle on Hammerly. 

Black male driver then eluded police on foot in an apartment complex by the lake, hopped the fence along McKean, crossed the ditch, and made a VERY wrong turn down Kerrwood.  

His mistake was solidified by walking across yards with "No Tresspassing" signs. Kerrwood's telephone tree was activated and neighbors came out with guns. 

Bad guy runs across a back yard, hops another fence and tries hiding under a truck. 
When police learned that neighbors armed with guns were after their suspect, the police presence went from 2 to 15 in a matter of minutes. Police then took over. 
The bad guy resisted police, was Tasered, and hauled off. 

It's nice living on a crime-free street. Chalk up another Kerrwood success in keeping it that way!

For the uninitiated, Spring Valley is one of these bedroom communities I mentioned before. If you've been reading this blog for a while you would have come across a couple of posts I've written about how the Spring Valley police and courts operate. If you want a good laugh, go to a court session and ask for a show of hands of anyone who's a resident of Spring Valley. It's a good bet you won't see many hands.

Spring Valley is located (mostly) between I-10 and Westview (the first major east-west thoroughfare in Spring Branch north of the freeway. We live a good couple of miles from the boundary. So my first question is why a Spring Valley police officer was chasing a motorist so far from home? The police from Spring Valley have no business being on Hammerly - they certainly have no business engaging in a chase.

I have no idea why the motorist didn't stop in Spring Valley. I'm sure he stood out while driving - as do most of the non-white defendants you will see in municipal court. The accident wouldn't have occurred had someone's testosterone not gotten the better of him. But I suppose that's just a little detail our storyteller decided to overlook.

Of course the writer must make a point of the driver in question being black. What better way to conjure up fear in the locals than tell them a black man was running down their street.

Then we get the formation of the posse. George Zimmerman must have been proud. Nothing like a bunch of scared white folks running around with guns looking for a black man. I don't know if they were wearing their hoods or not.

And of course the police descended en masse. With a bunch of lunatics carrying guns chasing someone (with no evidence that the "bad guy" had even done anything wrong), there needed to be some voice of sanity - and I suppose this time it was HPD who provided that voice. And, if you've lived in Houston for a while, you know that's a scary thought.

These gun-loving vigilantes are the same folks who sit on our jury panels and decide whether our clients' liberty should be infringed upon. Don't even kid yourself about their acceptance of the notion that a defendant is innocent unless proven otherwise - your client is guilty the minute they see him sitting next to you at the table.

Yep, these are my neighbors.

Free parking (no more)

Earlier this week I had to bid goodbye to a good friend. You see, for the past couple of months there was a parking meter - not too far from Minute Maid Park - that was particularly generous.

After it went haywire one morning and couldn't figure out the correct parking rate, someone went to adjust it. Afterward it worked like a dream - except for one little thing. Its internal clock was wrong. I first noticed it when I parked one morning and put $2.50 into the machine. When I got the receipt I had an additional two hours I hadn't paid for.

For those of y'all who don't have to deal with the parking meters in downtown Houston they are computerized and one machine can serve an entire block. The meter has an internal clock and calculates the time until your ticket expires based on the amount of money you pump into it. This particular meter's clock was set to Atlantic time -- that is, two hours later -- not Central time.

Now there are a couple of things y'all need to know about parking in downtown Houston. When I was in law school we could park two blocks down from the campus on the street for a dime an hour. We could park for up to 10 hours. I was taking night classes so I'd pop in a quarter every afternoon. It was the best deal in the city. And parking was free on the weekends.

Then Bill White decided the city needed to raise more revenue and he didn't feel like ticking off business leaders by cutting their tax breaks so he decided to start making folks pay to park downtown on Saturdays. Then they started putting in new parking meters and they raised the rates. It now costs about $1.50 an hour to park by the law school and you are limited to four hours in one spot.

So, most weekdays I would pull into an open spot, take out a dime, put it in the machine and, like magic, I had two hours and a couple of minutes of parking time. More importantly, I didn't have to worry about moving the car because there was no way to calculate how long I had been parked in the spot.

It was perfect.

It was so perfect I would stop by the meter on Saturday mornings taking my girls to the weekly writers' workshop at Discovery Green. I'd put in my dime and then drive down the street till we got by the park.

On Monday I drove downtown and parked in my usual spot but the parking meter wasn't working. I had to walk down the block and use another machine. And, worse yet, I actually had to pay for my two hours of parking. Wednesday afternoon I drove back downtown to visit a client in the Harris County Jail and parked in my usual spot. This time the machine was working - but, when I looked at the time, the internal clock had been fixed.

I have no idea how many people knew the machine was screwed up. I know I never told a soul. Until now.

Who's really to blame for network fiasco?

So now Houston mayor Annise Parker has decided to get herself in the middle of the fray between the Astros and Rockets' regional sports networks and satellite and cable TV providers. According to Mayor Parker, the fact that the network is available to no more than 40% of Houston cable and satellite subscribers is "intolerable." So, to break the impasse she has invited representatives from the sports network, DirecTV, AT&T and Suddenlink to sit down and work it out.

“The proud followers of our Houston teams – many of whom have paid for the venues where the Astros, Dynamo and Rockets compete – have been patient as your negotiations with Comcast SportsNet Houston have unfolded,” Parker wrote. “That said, as the Rockets push toward the NBA playoffs and the Astros and Dynamo seasons get underway, the situation is intolerable.”

Most telling is her comment about who paid for the stadiums in which the teams play. When these multi-million dollar playpens were built, the public was told the bill would be paid by folks who came to town and stayed in hotels and rented cars. Well, that's not entirely correct. Local government officials agreed to finance the stadiums and placed an additional tax on hotel rooms and rental cars. That additional tax was supposed to cover the costs of the stadiums. But, should those tax revenues fall below the level necessary to pay off the bondholders, who do you think is responsible for coughing up the balance?

In her pandering to the owners of the franchises, Mayor Parker seems to have forgotten that both the Astros and the Rockets had existing deals with one of Fox Sports' regional networks to televise their games. The Dynamo had no broadcast outlet for the majority of their games. The Fox network was available on all cable and satellite systems as part of a basic (or expanded basic - whatever the hell that means) subscription.

The ownership of the Astros and Rockets made the decision to go in with NBC Sports to create their own regional sports channel in hopes of making more money than they made with Fox. In order to bring in the revenue, the network has asked cable and satellite providers for a certain amount of money per subscriber. The providers say the asked for price is too expensive for them to make the channel available for basic packages.

Yes, the providers are trying to bid down the price so they can make more money carrying the channel. But the lion share of the blame must rest on the Astros and the Rockets for being greedy. The Astros have spent the last two seasons in the cellar and will likely sit on the basement sofa eating Cheetos come October. The Rockets are in the playoffs for the first time in I don't know how long (truth be told, I couldn't care less about basketball). I guess no one in the front offices realized that teams that aren't doing well on the field (or at the gate) don't have much leverage when it comes to negotiating television deals.

If Mayor Parker were really interested in the plight of Astros and Rockets fans she'd put the blame where it belongs - on the teams themselves. These teams had new stadiums built for them with the public picking up the tab (damn those poor folks who are scamming the government to get our tax dollars so they can sit at home all day and not work). With those kind of subsidies, these teams should be operated as a public trust.

Instead the owners of both teams have shown themselves to be greedy little monsters out to squeeze every dollar from the fans they can.

Criminalizing the homeless

Sec. 39-2. - Disturbing or removing contents of containers.

(a)

It is unlawful for any person to intentionally, knowingly or recklessly handle, scavenge from, disturb, or remove any contents of any bin, bag, or other container that has been placed for collection of garbage, trash or recyclable materials at the designated location for pickup by the department, or for pickup by any other public or private collection service.

(b)

It is a defense to prosecution under this section that the accused is the person who placed or caused the bin, bag or container to be placed for collection or that the accused is an agent or employee of the city.

That's the text of a Houston city ordinance that prohibits folks from digging around in someone else's trash. Now we can forget for a second that when I put something in my trash can I'm throwing it out because I don't want or need it anymore. I've put out old stuff with our recycling and there are times it's gone before I even go to bed.

The courts have used that argument to allow the police to dig through your trash can when they're looking for  something they can use against you. And it was so nice of the city council to give a blanket defense to the police. Notice that nowhere in the ordinance does it state that the agent or employee of the city has to be carrying out the duties of his or her job. Nope. It's enough that they get a paycheck signed by the City Controller every other week.

This is statute that James Kelly violated. Mr. Kelly is homeless. He was scavenging for food. Someone with the police department made the decision that what Mr. Kelly really needed was a ticket that calls for a fine between $50 and $2,000. Because that'll really solve the problem.

In response to public outcry about ticketing a homeless man for dumpster diving, city officials pointed out that the prohibition on dumpster diving is on the books (and, therefore, just had to be enforced because we just can't have laws on the books that we're not arresting or citing people for breaking). Well that's all well and good, Annise Parker.

Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, said tickets for violations of the ordinance are written only in response to complaints that garbage has been removed and left outside of trash containers. 

"I know on the face of it, it sounds very cruel," the union leader said, stressing that most police officers would not cite someone for simply taking food from a dumpster.

The homeless get in the way. They don't dress nicely. They don't look clean. They're always hustling for something or the other. They sleep all over the place. Having homeless folks on the streets is a cold splash of water in the face of those who want to promote Houston as a world-class city.

But, they're there. Some of them are mentally ill. Some of them are drug addicts. Some of them were living paycheck-to-paycheck when they lost their job. Instead of criminalizing their behavior and trying to sweep them under the rug, why don't we do something to combat the growing number of homeless folks sleeping out on the streets every night?

But doing something to help doesn't mean issuing tickets for those rummaging through the trash looking for something to eat just because there's an ordinance on the books that says you can do it. We need to be asking ourselves what are the economic and social conditions that lead to homelessness - not devising schemes to hide them away in the corners so that no one knows they're around.

HPD's dirty little ticket secret

We all know that it's hard to win in traffic court. The officer has his shiny gadget that tells him how fast you may or may not have been driving - a readout that no one but him ever sees. And what about when he asks you for your driver's license and insurance? Chances are there's no one else in the car to contradict a word he says.

As far as the prosecutor and cashier judge are concerned he's got you on three grounds. Maybe you've got your insurance card to prove you had coverage at the time of the stop. Okay, that's one for you.

But what about that driver's license. There's no question it was valid at the time of the stop. But were you carrying it with you? Remember, it's your word against his.

Maybe they offer to dismiss the no driver's license charge if you take a deferred on the speeding case. Or maybe they offer you deferred on one and defensive driving on the other. All works out the same in the end - the city gets what it wants and you get screwed.

Happens every day in every court in the Municipal Courthouse.

But now there's a little twist.

What if the police officer has already preset his ticket-writing computer to issue citations for speeding, no insurance and no driver's license? Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

Unfortunately,  that's exactly what's been happening in Houston.

According to this article in the Houston Chronicle, Shirley Simmons was pulled over for speeding in a school zone near her grandson's school. What she didn't realize at the time was that the officer also cited her for failing to display a driver's license and for not having proof of insurance.

When she got home, put on her glasses and closely read the ticket, she discovered two incorrect charges: failure to display a valid Texas driver's license and lack of insurance. She went to two nearby Houston Police Department stations, but was directed to the traffic division downtown. 

After a supervisor spoke with her and the officer, the two extra violations were removed. She still must go to court later this month for driving 5 miles-per-hour over the limit. But Simmons, a disabled 61-year-old grandmother, wonders if officers are pre-setting tickets with violations in certain communities, like the crossroads of Sunnyside and South Acres, where she was stopped.

There is no doubt that there are a great number of drivers in our fair city who don't have a valid driver's license or insurance. I've had quite a few as clients of mine. But until Sgt. Robert Gonzales opened up his mouth without thinking, I had no idea that it was standard practice to have certain charges pre-set into the computer to save time.

Of course Sgt. Gonzales doesn't see it as a problem. And why should he? The traffic division is a fundraising unit for the City of Houston. The police aren't trained to look at people as being innocent unless proven otherwise. That kind of thinking is anathema to a police officer.

The problem, Sgt. Gonzales, is that no ticket spit out of a ticket-writing computer can be trusted anymore. We don't know if those charges were pre-set defaults or violations the officer actually observed. Hell, we don't even know if the ticket really tells us why the driver was stopped in the first place.

If a motorist is cited for speeding, failure to display a driver's license and not having proof of insurance - but they come to court with a valid driver's license and insurance card, wouldn't it be more likely that the motorist is being truthful when he says he wasn't speeding?

But, in a land in which judges are happy to sign check-the-box and fill-in-the-blank search warrant forms authorizing forcible blood draws in DWI cases, why should it surprise us that the police have rigged the ticket-writing computers?

And why, by the way, wasn't the officer who issued the ticket to Ms. Simmons not charged with filing a false government document? He pre-set the information. He knew it was pre-set. He printed out the ticket and handed it to Ms. Simmons. Then he filed a copy with the court.

Oh, but it was an accident. He didn't mean to do it. He was really sorry about it. Not that he did anything wrong, though.

Dem bones

I've lived in and around Houston all my life. Now Houston will never be a tourist destination like Austin and San Antonio are. Folks come to Houston for business and to see family. And that's fine for me.

Houston's lack of zoning has created a plethora of eclectic neighborhoods inside, and outside, the Loop. My office is smack dab in the middle of one of the most famous - The Heights.

But one thing about Houston disturbs me. We have very little sense of history here. It it's old, it's in danger of being knocked down by a developer. The rush to build cookie-cutter loft apartments, McMansions and trendy shopping areas spells doom for historic properties in and around this city.

Currently the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing construction of a river of concrete that will connect the Katy Freeway and the Northwest Freeway out in the far west reaches of Harris County. You see, it's not enough that we built a loop around the city. And it's not enough that we built a toll road surrounding that loop. Now we seem to have the need to build yet another ring road even further out. All in the name of making it easier for developers to convince folks to leave the city for the suburbs.

Of course the solution to the traffic mess in Houston has never been to find a better way of moving people around; it's always been about pouring more concrete and creating ever larger flood dangers where the bayous converge near the Ship Channel.

Well, in the course of pouring all this concrete, workers found some old bones. It turns out that they had dug up a 2,000 year old burial ground. Then they dug up another burial ground estimated to be 9,000 years old. Just think about those numbers for a second.

The Harris County Historical Society (talk about a fish out of water) thought it might be a good idea to do a bit more research on these burial grounds before filling them with concrete. You know, they just might be of some sort of historical import. Not that that mattered to the developers or TxDOT. They just wanted to know how long it would take to move the bones so they could get back to pouring concrete.

And so, back in July, they filed a lawsuit asking the court to let them dig up the bones and move them so they could get back to the very serious work of pouring more concrete. The case landed in Judge Reece Rondon's court. Before being appointed to the bench, Judge Rondon worked for Andrews Kurth (a big white shoe corporate firm) and for Reliant Energy (a bunch of rotten scoundrels Houston's primary electricity provider). In other words, he came from the same world as the developers.

I guess I don't need to tell you how Judge Rondon ruled in this case, do I? If you know anything about Houston, you know the HCHS never stood a chance. And, sure enough, Judge Rondon ruled for the developers and told the world that pouring more concrete is far more important than studying the history of this little part of the earth we call home.

There is far more to the world than building roads and developing cookie-cutter subdivisions with no trees and all of three floor plans. In the overall scheme of things, I would argue that building a road is a tad less important than studying prehistoric burial grounds. But if you think you're going to convince the powers that be in Houston of that, you might as well just beat your head against the roadbed.

An alternative to jailing the homeless

Once again kudos are due to a target of my barbs. This time it's Annise Parker, the mayor of Houston, who is presiding over the construction of a two-story warehouse that will serve as a sobriety center for our fellow Houstonians who have a tad bit too much to drink.

Now, instead of arresting folks for public intoxication and hauling them off to the city jail, the police can drop them off at the city's sobriety center. The facility will cost the city about $1.5 million a year, as opposed to the $4-6 million a year it costs the city to operate the city jail.

It is estimated that most of the people arrested for public intoxication, a Class C misdemeanor, are homeless. The sobriety center will move the city one step away from the policy of criminalizing homelessness.

It also brings a little bit of sanity to the situation. According to the penal code, it is against the law to be out in public and so intoxicated that you place yourself or others at risk. Most of the people arrested for public intoxication are sleeping at the time of their arrest. A good chunk of the other arrests for PI are of passengers in cars in which the driver is arrested for some other offense.

When the homeless are arrested for public intoxication they are booked into the city jail and taken before a municipal court judge the following day at which time they are offered a time served (or an extra night at the city's expense) and a complimentary conviction.

The problem of alcoholism and homelessness is not a story of criminal behavior. It's a story of a societal problem that we have done all we can to brush under the rug. Mayor Parker's embrace of the sobriety center is a step in the right direction.

City to subsidize development of luxury apartments rather than affordable housing

It's a well rehearsed mantra any time a professional sports teams asks the government to use public money to fund a private business (what about that free market, boys?) - the new stadium will spur economic development in the area. You know, new bars, restaurants and shops.

Of course all those folks seeking to be entertained had to come from somewhere. And that somewhere is generally another entertainment and shopping district located somewhere else in the city. All the new stadium does is take money and jobs from one part of the city and transfer it to the area around the stadium.

Now the city of Houston is looking to subsidize the development of more living space inside downtown. Your tax dollars are going to be handed out to developers who promise to build apartments near the convention center.

So let's get this straight. The city is still trying to balance its budget. One member of city council suggested the city just default on pension payments for former city employees. The city has put in place hiring and wage freezes. The school district is laying off teachers and using long-term subs because the state has cut funding - and the city won't lift a finger. But we can afford to write a check to every developer that promises to build an apartment unit on the east side of downtown?

The city claims it has to do this due to the high cost of land and the expense of building. But haven't we been through this before? Remember when developers were running all over downtown buying up old buildings and turning them into lofts? Remember how that was supposed to revitalize downtown?

What happened was there was such a glut of apartment space on the market downtown that prices went down and owners and investors found themselves upside down.

Bars and restaurants opened and closed and opened and closed.

There are few of the amenities downtown that there are in the neighborhoods throughout the city. There's one grocery store and it doesn't even compare to the stores elsewhere inside the Loop. There's a gas station that charges way too much because there's no one to compete with it. And there's the parking nightmare that is downtown Houston.

If the developers can't build and sell units downtown profitably without taking a government handout, then maybe they shouldn't be building new units downtown. Maybe the city shouldn't be in the position of favoring one part of town over others. Maybe downtown Houston will never be the urban mecca the planners are trying to turn it into. Unlike New York or Philadelphia or Chicago or Baltimore, Houston was nothing more than a sleepy mosquito-infested hamlet until  President Eisenhower decided to build interstate highways as a means to transport nuclear weapons across the country.

Houston grew up with highways and air conditioning. The city sprawls out for miles because developers built where the new highways and roads were being built. There's no effective mass transit in Houston because there was never much of a grid (other than downtown) to start off with.

If developing more residential units in downtown Houston will create a financial windfall, developers would have no problem lining up investors. The fact that they can't come up with the cash to make the projects profitable should tell us something. If private investors won't pony up the cash, the city sure as hell shouldn't either.

If the city has money burning a hole in its pocket, maybe the money should be used to subsidize the development of low-cost affordable housing instead. But we all know that'll never happen. After all, it's the developers that pump all the money into city elections, not the folks who can't afford housing.

What the hell was I thinking?

Have you seen this meter?

You gotta hand it to Mayor Annise Parker. She, and her colleagues on City Council, have come up with a brilliant way to raise additional revenue for the city without raising taxes or cutting services. In fact, implementing the plan saves the city money on supplies, as well.

And just what is this new revenue stream you might ask? Not refilling the paper rolls in the electronic parking meters downtown.

 If you see this meter, remain calm. Don't try to apprehend it by yourself. Please call the authorities at once.

Just think about it. Someone puts their money into the machine (no record of that transaction, is there?) or slides their credit or debit card in the slot to pay to park. Then, instead of printing out a receipt with an expiration time on it, the machine just sits there and looks at you like you're a complete freaking moron.

Oh you can try putting a note on your dashboard to the effect that the machine ate your money but there's no guarantee the losers who patrol the streets looking for cars to ticket are going to pay any attention to it. And even if you used plastic to pay to park when you go to the Municipal Courthouse to fight the ticket the functionary sitting behind the desk will look at your bank statement and tell you that it doesn't show what time the charge was made.

The idea would appear to be to force folks to use the city parking app on their phones to pay for parking. The only problem there is that no receipt is generated. The meter maidens must then run your license plate to determine if you've paid to park - and if you have any outstanding tickets that might get your car booted.

Now I'm out $2.50 for parking with nothing to show for it.

Thank you, Mayor Parker.

HCCLA packs METRO board meeting

Yesterday the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association made its presence felt at the monthly Metropolitan Transit Authority's (METRO) monthly board meeting regarding the use of TSA's VIPR teams on April 13, 2012.

Click here for a link to the video of the board meeting.

Prior to the meeting a letter from METRO CEO George Grenias was circulated that attempted to explain all the confusion about whether or not there were random searches of bags on April 13. According to the letter the initial press release on April 13 and the blog post on April 16 quoted from TSA's national "campaign" literature. Board members stressed that they were unaware of any random bag searches on April 13. Of course some of the board members, namely Burt Ballanfant, said they were unaware of the controversy.

Metro letter 04/26/12

Earl Musick, president of HCCLA, spoke about the duty to uphold the Constitution. He read the text of the Fourth Amendment to the board and presented the board with a copy of the Constitution suitable for framing. Past HCCLA presidents Mark Bennett and Robb Fickman also spoke. Mr. Bennett let the board know that a viper is one of the most dangerous snakes on the planet and that once you let a viper in your house you may never get it out. Mr. Fickman told the board that if METRO police wanted to practice their counter-terrorism moves they should practice them on each other, not the citizens of Harris County. He decried the assault on the civil liberties of the bus-riding public.

Also speaking from HCCLA were Randall Kallinen who reminded the board of their fiduciary duty to protect METRO's assets from plaintiffs' attorneys, Franklin Bynum, who spoke "from the heart" about the respect that was due those who use METRO's services and yours truly who equated the war on terrorism with the war against individual liberty.

Also present and speaking at the meeting were US Congressional Candidate Steve Sussman (in his "Tyranny Response Team" T-shirt and members of the Houston Free Thinkers. One of the Free Thinkers quoted Benjamin Franklin's line "those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither."

According to METRO Chairman Gilbert Garcia, as long as he serves as chairman there will be no random bag searches on METRO buses. He also stated that TSA was here on METRO's request and that METRO set the parameters on the operation. While the purpose of the operation was supposedly to ferret out any terrorists who might be riding the bus, no terrorists were caught. The arrests were for prostitution and drug possession.

We were also informed that TSA agents had been on METRO rail many times in the past but that April 13 was the first time they had gotten involved with the buses. What were TSA agents doing on the trains? METRO serves the Houston metropolitan area. Every point of departure and arrival is within Harris County (with a few exceptions where the city limits stretch into Fort Bend County). There are already a bevy of law enforcement agencies in Harris County - we don't need to add TSA to the mix.

After the meeting, as we had lunch at Zydeco's, I was left with a couple of thoughts to ponder. First, if the board knew as little about the operation as they claimed, who's really running the show down on Main Street? Second, is anyone vetting press releases and social media posts before they get circulated?

See also:

"Metro says it won't do random bag checks," Houston Chronicle (Apr. 27, 2012)
"Metro faces public backlash over counter-terror initiative," KTRK-13 (Apr. 26, 2012)

Too much, the magic bus

If you were thinking about hopping on that Metro bus for any reason, you might want to think again. According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, Metro is planning on subjecting more riders to TSA's brand new counter-terrorism measure.

That's right. Expect to see the police searching bags, asking for identification and running drug dogs around buses and bus stops for the next 60-90 days. They'll even have TSA's own behavioral detection officers who are trained to fuck with people for no good reason figure out who's a terrorist and who isn't.

According to the Metro police chief (that's the head of the bus cops), the Anti-Fourth Amendment brigade will be patrolling certain routes based on "crime data and trends and information" provided by drivers and passengers.

Looking for terrorists? Really?

How many terrorists did y'all pick up last Friday?

That's right - none. Because you know if they had found a terrorist the police would have made a lot of noise about it. But after gloating about the random bag searches, Metro began changing its story. First it morphed into bag were only searched if there was probable cause to search. Then Metro denied any bags were searched.

*   *   *

Law officials performed random bag checks, conducted sweeps with our K-9 drug and bomb-detecting dogs, and assigned both uniformed and plainclothes officers at transit centers and rail platforms to detect and prevent criminal activity.

Metro's in-house blog (4/16/12)

Houston METRO ‏ @METROHouston @

MarkWBennett NO random bag checks were performed during BusSafe exercise. We search only w/ probable cause or consent.

Metro's Twitter feed (4/18/12)

Houston METRO ‏ @METROHouston
@ChuckStanfield @frankbynum There were NO bag searches conducted during this operation..

Metro's Twitter feed (4/18/12)

*   *   *

If these guys can't even keep their stories straight, how can you believe anything that comes out of their mouths?

This assault on the people's right to be left alone isn't about finding terrorists on city buses. It's about finding excuses to arrest folks on nothing more than a hunch. The behavioral detection officers will provide the cover for the unlawful searches by claiming a passenger was acting in a suspicious manner. The uniformed officer will then use that "finding" to violate the rider's Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a search without either a warrant or probable cause. And guess what? No one's going to find any bombs on board - they'll find a little pot, some crack, maybe some powder and other assorted pharmaceuticals.

Law enforcement expects the public to eat up this counter-terrorism bullshit while they conspire to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of everyone who steps into a bus station, onto a platform or who rides the bus or train. We can't allow them to get away with it.

H/T Mark Bennett

Mussolini made the trains run on time

It was bad enough when airport harassment security was handed over to the newly-formed TSA following the attacks on 9/11. Of course the real tragedy was the attack on the Constitution by our own government using 9/11 as an excuse to crack down on rampant civil liberties.

It was a mild pain in the ass to travel by air prior to the hijackings. But since that time we have seen one more intrusion into our privacy after another. Every few months the muckety-mucks at TSA decide to implement a new strategy to fight yesterday's attack.

If you read Scott Greenfield yesterday you know about the sudden insights that Kip Hawley has had since he quit running TSA. While he is now troubled by the intrusion into travelers' privacy, it didn't seem to bother him too much when he was running the show.

Last night my colleague Mark Bennett posted a piece on his blawg that went beyond merely disturbing. Now Mark and I share a couple of things in common - neither one of us will fly as our little protest against the means by which los federales have used to trample the privacy rights of the citizenry. It turns out that TSA is not satisfied with fucking airport security up beyond belief. Now it's their mission to fuck up the rest of the nation's transportation system.

TSA's VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) unit descended upon Houston recently and trampled upon the rights of folks hopping a ride on METRO. That's right. Somehow it's now under TSA's purview to implement security measures for those so brazen as to take advantage of public transportation.

Law officials performed random bag checks, conducted sweeps with our K-9 drug and bomb-detecting dogs, and assigned both uniformed and plainclothes officers at transit centers and rail platforms to detect and prevent criminal activity. 

At a news conference last Friday, METRO Police Chief Victor Rodriguez called METRO's transit system one of the safest in the world. "We at METRO take our responsibility seriously. We have a safe and secure system," said Rodriguez. "This initiative is going to help us maintain and enhance the safety of our system. It takes this collaborative effort to synergize those expertise and skills for the benefit of all of Houston." 

Doyle Raines, general manager at the Transportation Security Administration, said Rodriguez invited the TSA to bring its viper teams to join in this grassroots pilot program that grew from a peer advisory group of mass transit police chiefs and security directors that included METRO's Rodriguez. 

The VIPR squad, assisted by the Harris County Sheriff's Office, the METRO police and Harris County Constables carried out a counter-terrorism exercise by subjecting riders to "random" bag searches and K-9 sniffs. The stormtroopers agencies recorded eight felony arrests.

So tell me, Mr. Rodriguez, just how many of those who got arrested were subjected to searches without probable cause? Not that it matters, I suppose, because the courts in Harris County aren't known for suppressing searches just because the police might (and i stress might) have overstepped their legal authority. I mean, the guy had the goods on him, didn't he?

Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (who has never missed an opportunity to mug for the camera) exclaimed that she was ecstatic that the TSA was subjecting bus riders to the same inconveniences that airline passengers put up with.

But how many people had their rights trampled upon? How many times did the police ignore the proscriptions of the 4th Amendment and subject folks to unreasonable search and seizure? How much more of this can we endure? How long until even the most docile American stands up and tells the government that enough is enough?

We used to have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Not any more. At the airport you have none. At home the NSA is downloading all of your phone calls and internet searches. And now, the people who take public transportation (and down here that's mainly folks who can't afford a working car) have none.

If you're fed up here's your chance to do something about it. METRO will hold its next board meeting on April 26, 2012 in the second floor boardroom at 1900 Main at 9:00 a.m. Let's pack the room and let METRO know how we feel about the steady erosion of our rights.

Mark is mad as hell and I can't take it anymore.

The mayor's plan to rid downtown of the homeless

Well, if you can't figure out a way to resolve the homeless issue in Houston, the least you can do, Mayor Parker, is get those folks out of the way of everyone else. You know, out of sight, out of mind. The last thing you want are folks coming downtown for the various festivals in the spring to see homeless people wandering around. Might give those suburbanites the wrong idea and all.

What? You've already thought of that? You mean to tell me you've cooked up a plan to shut down the churches and charitable organizations that provide meals for the homeless?

As those guys in the Guinness commercial would say, "Brilliant!"

So let's get this straight. We're going to issue citations and hit these do-gooders with $2,000 fines if they don't get your permission before handing out the food?

Probably not to much lose with that plan. I doubt most of the homeless folks vote since you have to have an address to do that sort of thing. You figure that most of your liberal core followers will continue to drink the kool aid because you're a lesbian or because they can't be bothered to look at what you actually do rather then what you say.

There may be some citizens of our fair city who have something to say about that this afternoon at 1:30 at City Hall outside council chambers.

See also:

The proposed regulations (pp. 33-45)

Mayor wants to build new crime lab

Harris County already has a crime lab. It's called the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. It was created out of the old medical examiner's office. They have a brand new building and a staff of anthropologists, forensic pathologists and lab techs in various forensic fields.

The City of Houston, on the other hand, only has the long discredited HPD Crime Lab.

But now Annise Parker wants a crime lab of her own. She wants to create an "independent" crime lab headed up by an assortment of political appointees to oversee the testing of evidence in criminal investigations. She'll need a building and a staff as well as a board of appointees fitting every possible demographic.

Mayor Parker wants someone from an Innocence Project-type group on the board. Council member Larry Green wants someone from the NAACP or LULAC. And, so we don't forget the wingnut crowd, Michael Sullivan wants representatives from law enforcement, so-called victims' rights groups and Parents of Murdered Children.

Excuse me, Mr. Sullivan, the crime lab's only customer will be law enforcement. They will provide the expert witnesses at trial. They will bend the truth any way they can to convince that jury that the defendant is guilty as charged.

Any crime lab should be independent of law enforcement. The testing of evidence should be an exercise in science, not politics. The only agenda the board running the lab should have is how to improve the science.

With the IFS already up and running, there is no need for the city to build its own crime lab. The city should contract with the IFS to handle any evidence testing for HPD. Running two crime labs would be a tremendous waste of resources. There are better uses for city money than duplicating the services the county already provides.

So, Mayor Parker, just let it go.

H/T Grits for Breakfast

City to evict occupiers

This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper. 

"The Hollow Men" -- T.S. Eliot

The City of Houston has informed the Occupy Houston protesters that they must vacate downtown's Tranquility Park by dusk this evening.

Mayor Annise Parker claims the occupation has cost the city $287,268.00 in regular salary and $54,917.68 in overtime pay for police officers. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but those officers who were sent to keep an eye on the park for the last five months were already on the payroll and likely would have been given some other assignment but for the protest. And, it was the city's decision to try to intimidate the protesters by keeping police at the park around the clock.

I don't know what the protest has accomplished here in Houston. It made a big splash when the occupation began and again at the port arrests in December. The occupiers raised some awareness of the influence corporate interests wield in the political process but without a coherent message or ideology, the voices became muddled against the background.

The next couple of hours will tell whether the occupation will make one last splash in Houston.

On crime and car repairs

A storm is a-brewing in Houston over the cost of auto repairs. City Council is expected to pass a new ordinance that would require repair shops to obtain a car owner's signature before they can do any work that would add $100 or more to the estimate given to the car owner.

Well, yeah, if you tell me it's going to cost X to fix my car, if you find something else wrong that's going to jack the price up, you should call me. If you see something you think needs to be replaced "while you're down there," call me. That's just good business and what most repair shops I've dealt with do.

Under the proposed ordinance, repair shops that don't get authorization before beginning work could be cited by police. The citation would be a Class C misdemeanor, much like the tickets handed out by building inspectors.

Here's the problem. The proposed ordinance would criminalize bad business behavior. Is that what we really need? Do we need to create new criminal offenses? And who would be the person cited? The owner? Manager? Service advisor?

I'm sure the proposal is well-intentioned - unless, of course, the real driving force behind it were the insurance companies hoping to stick it the body and repair shops where people take their cars for work covered by their car insurance. Hmm.

Criminal law should be used to deal with situations that are harmful to society - to discourage such behavior and to punish it when it does occur. But criminalizing the failure to get authorization to do a repair is like using a sledgehammer to drive in a nail.

I know that Class C violations are punishable by nothing more than a fine -- but there's the cost of hiring an attorney and attending court that must be taken into consideration. Then there's the odd notion that you could go to jail should you fail to appear on your court date.

We're dealing with a civil issue here. When you take your car to the shop you are entering into a contract with the shop that you agree to pay them in exchange for them attempting to fix your car. Contract law should govern any dispute between the car owner and the repair shop.

There are far too many criminal laws on our books today. This is one we don't need to create.