HPD assistant police chief and blogHOUSTON favorite (for entertainment value!) Martha Montalvo is quoted in a KPRC-2 story on the decision to pull officers from the street to help out in the property room after a recent scandal:
Many Houston police officers are being taken off the streets to pay for an investigation into missing evidence in the department’s property room, KPRC Local 2 reported Tuesday.
About $40,000 used to pay for an overtime program to target car burglaries in downtown Houston is being shifted to pay for the property room audit after 21 guns were stolen from the secure facility.
“I think that the public is entitled to ensure that what we have in there is correct,” Executive Assistant Chief Martha Montalvo said.
Montalvo said she needed to quickly fund the audit as the criminal investigation continues.
“What I wanted to do was have an outside inventory of the guns inside that property room,” Montalvo said. “I wanted an outside group of classified officers to go in and do a count.”
Assistant Chief George Buenik sent out an internal memo ordering that the downtown program stop.
“Effective immediately, stop all overtime programs that were being paid with seizure money,” Buenik wrote. “I will also need an accounting of the total amount allocated and spent. Chief Montalvo needs this money for the property room investigation. She is likely to receive other money and once she does, your program will continue.”
Strangely enough, I thought Harold “Raising Arizona” Hurtt was the chief of police, not the frequently entertaining Montalvo.
He hasn’t decided to stay in Phoenix until someone notices he’s missing, has he?
ANNE ADDS: It’s been a busy couple of days for Assistant Police Chief Montalvo. In yesterday’s Chron, she announced that HPD soon expects four downtown surveillance cameras will be online, modifying criminal behavior.
And KHOU-11 got ahold of an HPD memo that said if officers assigned to a downtown overtime program didn’t start producing more citations and arrests, the program could be ended.
So there you have Martha Montalvo’s idea of policing downtown: less police officers and more cameras. Downtown’s looking inviting, eh?
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