PART 1 OF A TWO-PART SERIES

Imagine.

One minute you’re walking down the street minding your own business, and the next, police handcuff you, search you, and stuff you in the back of a squad car.

Sound a little harsh?

The 11 News Defenders discovered that’s exactly what’s happening at the Houston Police Department’s cutting edge crime force—the Crime Reduction Unit.

The CRU, as it’s known, is Houston’s $5 million a year, 60 officer answer to taking down the bad guys, by blanketing high crime areas.

“If you’re attempting to take over our neighborhoods and victimizing our citizens—we’re coming after you,” said Chief Harold Hurtt shortly after launching the program in November, 2007.

But critics and even some HPD insiders say that “coming after you” mentality has crossed the line.

Consider what 11 News cameras observed during a recent ride-a-long with the CRU in Northeast Houston. A citizen was stopped, immediately handcuffed, searched, and placed in the squad car while the officer ran warrant checks on his mobile computer.

So what was the crime?

Jaywalking.

“I was just trying to cross the street,” the citizen pleaded.

“I know that, but there’s a crosswalk right there, you can’t be impeding traffic,” the CRU officer replied.

Actually, there is no traffic to speak during the early morning hours, but it didn’t stop the officer from pulling over another pedestrian for the same thing.

“I’m an innocent bystander,” he quipped.

And 11 News witnessed another stop for a petty offense: riding a bicycle without a light.

In the end, all of those citizens were let go. But the idea of “hot spots” policing is by blanketing a high crime area with a strong police presence, it will deter major crime.

But has the CRU gone too far?

Turns out, even some of HPD’s own officers say instead of targeting major criminals, the CRU has turned to hassling ordinary citizens in order to rack up arrests.

“They are running and gunning just to keep their stats up without regard to quality cases,” one HPD sergeant said to a supervisor in an internal HPD e-mail the 11 News Defenders obtained.

“The quantity of felony arrests is what will allow them (to) keep their jobs, so they are getting cases any way they can,” the e-mail added.

Jacorious Douglas, 21, said he was stopped, cuffed and searched not once, but twice, only to be let go both times.

“I’m like what, we ain’t doing nothing but cross the street,” Douglas said.

“There’s very aggressive tactics that are being used,” said Sandra Thompson, Professor of Law and Director of the University of Houston Criminal Justice Institute.

“It can get to the point within neigborhoods where if the tactics are too frequent and too aggressive, then it starts to backfire, and the good citizens in the community get tired of being searched,” Thompson said.

Veteran defense attorney Troy McKinney put it more bluntly.

“It seems to be a mill to get convictions,” McKinney said.

“Go find some real crime to fight, cause there is real crime out there to fight, this isn’t it.”

Consider the types of cases CRU is making.

www.cjcenter.org/college

CRU Expert Weighs In: Larry Hoover, PhD is Director of the Police Research Center at Sam Houston State University and has studied crime response units nationwide, including Dallas, Chicago, and currently Houston’s Crime Reduction Unit.
WHAT WORKS
THE DANGERS
ANOTHER LOOK: CHICAGO P.D.
DOCUMENT: Research Summary

11 News analyzed nearly 1,000 cocaine arrests, and 49 percent turned out to be for minor amounts known as “trace residue” cases, where the accused had less than one-tenth of one gram.

“When that’s what they’re doing, it says to me somebody’s trying to rack up numbers,” McKinney said.

But even with these cases, the CRU may be going too far, according to an internal HPD e-mail:

“(Officers) say they’re bordering on violation of search and seizure laws” …”without search warrants, they have made cases by swabbing the inside of a suspect’s nose or mouth and getting a positive field test.”

Hard to believe?

It’s exactly what defense attorney Juan Aguirre said happened to a client.

“They noticed some white powdered substance on the upper lip,” Aguirre said.

His client was arrested by CRU officers for possession of cocaine less than a gram—a state jail.

But the “drug” possession turned out to be bogus, because Aguirre later learned HPD’s own lab test came back negative.

“The case went away,” Aguirre said.

But the pressure to make cases may be causing another problem—police inflating the weight of seized drugs.

“CRU officers have weighed the entire crack pipe with residue and submitted the submission as that total weight,” an internal HPD e-mail stated.

“This definitely skews the amount of narcotics they’re reporting.”

As a result, McKinney said it can be a raw deal for the accused.

“They’re getting charged with a higher crime. In the end we’re going to have to go back and undo some of these prosecutions,” McKinney said.

But HPD’s top brass is high on the CRU.

“I think they’re doing a great job,” said Assistant Chief Kirk Munden, in charge of special investigations.

“It’s all about taking criminals off the streets of our neighborhoods,” Munden said, adding that internal e-mail complaints are way of base.

“We could find no instance where (inflating drug weights) occurred. There was never a problem with any of those cases,” Munden said.

In fact, he said Houston should be proud of the CRU.

“They’re arresting lots of felons and they’re doing a good job at it.”

But the 11 News Defenders discovered, there’s a big catch to that claim.

SO WHAT IS IT?

TO FIND OUT, WATCH PART 2 OF THIS DEFENDER’S INVESTIGATION, TUESDAY NIGHT AT 10 PM