The Houston Police Department has released crime statistics for the first quarter of 2006, and the numbers aren’t good.
Since most media outlets in town are likely to be reporting the White Administration’s spin on the numbers, it’s helpful that KHOU-11 has posted the actual stats to its website in the form of a PDF file.
The raw number of murders in the first quarter of 2006 is up 18.4% from the same period in 2005, according to the report, and overall incidents of violent crime are up 6.1%. The number of homicides per 100,000 residents is up 10.8% from 2005, and overall violent crime (per 100,000 residents) is down by 0.6%.
Both sets of numbers are helpful (raw numbers are useful, and so are numbers that take into account population), but it will be interesting to see which ones are reported by various media outlets and how they work the White press shop’s spin into their reporting.
KHOU’s Amy Tortolani reports that Mayor White is promising action:
“The murder rate is just unacceptable.” said Mayor White. The situation is so alarming that Wednesday, Mayor White asked city leaders to take steps to attack the problem.
Houston Police Captain Dwayne Ready said his department is up to the challenge and will be moving into high crime neighborhoods. “This will be different bringing command van right out there in the field whereever officers are deployed,” he said.
A van?
Man, Mayor White sure knows how to put the bad guys on the run!
Wouldn’t it be cool if they painted it to look like the Mystery Machine from the Scooby Doo cartoons, only with a big “FEAR REDUCTION INITIATIVE” slapped on the side?
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