Chief Hurtt says Houston's crime rate is down, others aren't so sure

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Gene Apodaca
More: Bio, abc13.com News Team, E-mail

(1/24/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- Houston's police chief says the city's overall crime rate is down.

The one spike was seen in the number of murders last year, compared to 2005. The numbers come from the FBI, but at least one city council member says the numbers may not tell the complete story.

For 20 years, Saundra Montgomery has lived in the same southwest Houston neighborhood. So when she heard crime across the city was down, she was a bit surprised.

"I don't know what part of the city they are talking about, but it is definitely up over here," she said.

According to numbers just released today, the overall crime rate in Houston dropped nearly six percent.

Crimes broken down:

Murder: Climbed 5% over the last year per 100,000 people

Rape: Dropped 8.3%

Robbery: Dropped more than 4%

Aggravated assault: Dropped 6.3%

All categories of nonviolent crime dropped as well:

Burglary: Down 8.6%

Theft: Down 5.5%

Auto theft: Down 3.1%

"And you may ask, 'Chief, how did you do that,'" asked Houston Police Department Chief Harold Hurtt. "Well we did that through high visibility -- very aggressive enforcement and in some areas zero tolerance enforcement."

It's not just that, population increases affected the crime rate. Take for example, robbery:

2005: 11,128

2006: 11,371

That's an increase of 2.2% in actual cases. But because of the adjusted population, it appears the crime dropped 4.2%.

It's that kind of math that Montgomery has a problem with.

"They should just tell you that it is an estimate," she said. "By telling you that it is an estimate, people would know that everything doesn't get reported."

"When people have that type of crime in their neighborhood, that's what they remember," said city council member M.J. Kahn. "I think it will take some effort on our part to not only educate, but continue to make efforts to bring the crime rate down."

We are told that council member Kahn requested specific numbers for his district from Chief Hurtt to get an idea of what is going on there.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

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