Stopping Crime

Harris County, Texas—where Houston is located—is currently a poster example of crime rising for known reasons.

This past Saturday at our local Tea Party meeting, we heard from Andy Kahan of Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers is a big, nationwide organization. But Houston is one of the few places where they have a building of their own, because it’s that big, and that necessary. Most of us know about them as a place to call with anonymous tips. That is still true. Crime Stoppers does information and community outreach and education. But their third floor is manned by local law enforcement, who actually take the crime tips.

Kahan (pronounced Kahn) has been fighting crime for some 30 years, just a few of those at Crime Stoppers. He notices trends, and he talked with us about a few of those.

Andy Kahan points out Rosalee Cook, one of 181 victims
of violent felons out on multiple PR bonds in Harris County.

Back in 2018 Harris County had a shift from Republican to Democrat. Votes matter. In that shift we got a Democrat DA, a Democrat County Judge and Democrat-majority Commissioners Court, and a sweep of Democrat judges. All of those are bad. But the biggest effect on crime was the changeout from experienced Republican judges to inexperienced Democrat judges with a penchant to be against incarceration of criminals.

Kahan, talking about his 30 years involved in crime fighting, says this:

I frankly have not seen what I’m seeing, involving the crime rate and what's happening in the courthouse. And I've seen it all. I've been through it all. I've done 27 pieces of legislation to enhance victims’ rights and public safety. But what we are seeing is extremely disturbing.

Here, specifically, is the heart of the problem:

Individuals who have been released on felony bonds are charged with additional crimes have doubled since 2018.

He said it used to be unheard of for violent offenders to “get out of jail free” with a personal recognizance bond. He gives us some numbers:

In 2018 there were 12 defendants who were given PR bonds, charged for violent offenses. 2021 we managed to improve that to 1283. We're talking murder and robbery, assault with a deadly weapon.

Let me do the math for you. That’s 107 times more—not a 100% increase; that would be only two-fold. This is 107-fold more. For every single criminal we used to face back out on the streets, we now face 107 dangerous criminals. Many are released with multiple PR bonds. And they’re set free even when they offend while on parole.

110 of the 1283 violent criminals are capital murderers. Capital murder is the one crime where judges are given the option of no bond—where the judge can refuse to release them for any amount. The assumption is that, even if they could come up with a $1 billion bond, they still shouldn’t be released onto the streets; they should be kept incarcerated up through their trial. But even these known deadly felons are being released among us.

In case we think these violent felons are all hanging around some seedy neighborhood far from our homes, Kahan enlightens us.

He started noticing a trend, that a lot of defendants charged with murder in Harris County had been released on multiple felony bonds. He put together a collection of 181 photos of victims killed by violent felons out on multiple PR bonds—known repeat offenders who were told essentially to “please return to court and behave yourself and don't re-offend again.” Each victim has a story. Here are just a few.

Rosalee Cook

Rosalie Cook right here, 80-year-old grandma who was going to Walgreens on Saturday morning in Meyerland, and she stumbled upon a guy named Randy Lewis. Randy Lewis had over 60 convictions in Harris County. I don't know what he had elsewhere. He was out on not one, but two felony PR bonds, despite having over 60 convictions. He was told to go and live in a facility as a condition of his bond, which he did for a day. Then he walked out, and nobody did anything. Nobody reported it. Nobody told the court, “Hey, this guy is gone. We might want to put, like, a warrant out for his arrest.” Two weeks Randy Lewis whereabouts are unknown. He stumbles upon Rosalee Cook coming into the parking lot. Tries to carjack her. Stabs her to death in the parking lot at 10:00 AM in Walgreens. Rosalee Cook paid the price for discretionary felony bond reform.

 

Martha Medina

Martha Medina coming out of McDonald's. I remember her case. She was followed from a bank, coming in to go to McDonald's, getting her breakfast, walks out. Two guys struck and carjack her and killed her. One of the guys charged with her murder was on bond for capital murder already. Martha Medina paid the price for this.

 

Chi Le

Chi Le, whose body was found stuffed in a freezer off of the Beltway and Hammerly. The individual charged with her murder was on two PR bonds: for violating a protective order and family assault. I could go on and on and on talking about some of these cases here.

 

Stanley Iscovitz

This is Mike Iscovitz’s [the chief meteorologist for Fox 26 in Houston] dad, Stanley. Stanley's an 80-year-old Air Force veteran who was just simply taking a walk in his neighborhood. He was murdered by a guy out on a felony PR bond. You would think maybe that's kind of like the end of the story, right? Now he's charged with murder, right? Guess what? He's back out. On a bond.

 

Summer Chester

Jonathan Vera was booked and charged with capital murder, shot and killed a 55-year-old homeowner in his sleep during a home invasion in the Greenpoint area. And he shot at another person that was trying to flee the scene. Vera was booked, charged with capital murder, was given a $250,000 bond, which he couldn't make. So for several years, he was actually in the county jail where he belonged. While in a county jail, he was charged with assault of a public servant, when he decided to do several things to one of the officers…. So now he's charged with another felony. Okay. He also racked up 90 pages worth of infractions while behind bars, which kind of, you know, in my experience, that kind of leads you to the conclusion that he's not exactly behaving himself to do that. But, you know, what do I know?

So this particular court ignored all that and lowered his capital murder bond from $250 to $50 [thousand]. He makes the $50 [thousand]; he gets out, despite again being charged with another felony while in custody and 90 pages worth of infractions. Six months later, he's speeding, runs a red light, kills Summer Chester, a 23-year-old TSU graduate student. Summer Chester paid the price for that.

Andy Kahan points out Summer Chester, one of 181 victims
of violent felons out on multiple PR bonds in Harris County.

Whose fault is this? The courts.

We haven’t had a lot good to say about District Attorney Kim Ogg; she campaigned on no jail time for drug offenses. But Kahan defended her. She actually was a part of Crime Stoppers a few years back. And she has been pushing to stop the PR bonds for violent felons, to no avail. In fact, there are a number of things where she and our incompetent County Judge are at odds. My theory is that many of the drug offenses are plea deals down from larger offenses, so you can’t ignore them. And if you ignore them, bigger stuff happens. But at least she is recognizing the violent crime problem.

Some of the problem is policy pushed by the radical County Judge Lina Hidalgo and those who control her on the County Commission. But, really, it comes down to the individual judges.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, at fault for policies
leading to rising crime. Photo by Van Williams, found
in The Texan news story.

Kahan pointed out that, historically, incumbent judges don’t get primary opponents—unless they’re really bad. This year a majority of the judges had opponents in the Democrat primary. Six or seven were voted out in the primary. He adds, “This upcoming election cycle, you're going to see an emphasis on judicial races like you've never seen before.”

I know in the Republican Party we worked very hard to get candidates to run in every race. I signed petitions for most of them. Of particular importance are the criminal courts, which we’re talking about today. But people in civil and family courts have suffered from incompetent non-law-abiding judges as well.

We need to remember to vote all the way down the ballot—and get friends to do that as well. These judges got in with a “Beto” sweep, with lots of out-of-state money, when we still had straight-ticket voting. It takes some time to actually vote for nearly 100 races, with names you’re not familiar with. Trust us; this year just vote Republican. We were better off when we had mostly Republican judges. We can be better off again.

Sorry the photo’s blurry, but I was pleased to see this sign, across a six-lane road from our favorite little neighborhood restaurant a few days ago.

Besides voting, what can we do about crime? Bond reform is a legislative priority, so we’ll be working with the legislature in just a few months.

Kahan talked a bit about legislation. Last session weird stuff happened, and then the Democrats fled the state for the entirety of one of the special sessions. They eventually got a bill through called the Damon Allen Act, based on a trooper who was shot and killed by a criminal out on multiple felony bonds. The bill makes it so murderers can no longer get on a “get out of jail free” PR bond.

Kahan talked about the testimony in Austin on that bill. The opposition is well organized and well funded—and they show up. They had 80 people there in Austin to testify against the bill. The proponents had 10; 7 were from Crime Stoppers.

He talked about another bill that unfortunately didn’t pass. It was for a constitutional amendment—which means it would be voted on by the people—to allow discretion for judges to withhold bond from certain violent felons in addition to capital murder. The proposal related to the Paul Castro case from Houston. A man and his son were leaving a Houston Astros game last summer when the son was shot in what was called a road-rage case. People were rightfully ticked off when the judge granted a bond to the murderer. The way the statute currently reads, the only offense in which a judge has discretion to not give a bond is for capital murder. Other levels of murder and violent crimes must be given a bond, and if the criminal meets it, he’s out on the streets. And with the backlog in the courts right now, it could be years before his case is heard.

So the law was to allow denying bond in certain egregious cases that don’t happen to qualify as capital murder.

The bill passed in the Senate 27-2. In the House, because it was for a constitutional amendment, a two-thirds majority was required. The vote fell short by 12 votes. Kahan notes that every Democrat representative from Harris County voted against allowing the voter to decide whether to give judges discretion.

It’s interesting that the Harris County District Attorney’s Office testified in favor of the bill—presenting supporting documentation and data showing why we needed it. It’s rare for government entities to disagree on a bill, especially when led by the same party. But the Harris County Commissioners Court sent someone to testify against it. The guy they sent—his Twitter feed’s opening statement said, “Abolish Prisons.” Now you know the ultimate game plan of the radicals running the county.

So this is a bill to look for again next session.

Stopping crime isn’t supposed to be a partisan thing. Our Commissioners Court and our judges seem to have made it that way. The Commissioners Court has been rather put out with Crime Stoppers, and with Kahan in particular. They called him an “ax-grinding fearmonger.” Kahan says he’s embraced that. They put up a picture of him grinding an ax at Crime Stoppers. But about the partisanship, he says,

I don't understand why public safety has become partisan, but I can guarantee you every people person on that, with a picture here, didn't care if they were Republican, Democrat, independent, or what.

If we get in the right judges, who abide by the law instead of letting criminals go free, and if we get the right laws, will crime go down? Chances are it will. Here’s a story out of Miami, where they fought the trend of defunding police (which is the bad policy Harris County has been attempting to inflict on us), and they're seeing lower crime rates. Murders are at a decades-long low, and overall crime is the lowest it has been since the 1930s. (Video of that story below.)