What’s the size of the copper theft division at HPD? KHOU-11’s Lee McGuire tells us:
Just two police officers.
“It’s very difficult for us to keep up. 250 cases [per month], two people. You don’t have to be a genius to know that two people can’t keep up with 250 cases,” said Captain Ceaser Moore. He runs Houston’s crackdown on copper theft.
And for comparison, Houston’s elected officials are looking a bit longingly at Dallas. They have one sergeant, and 4 officers on scrap metal theft. That’s for a city with 12 scrapyards.
Houston, meanwhile, has one sergeant, one officer, and 115 scrapyards.
Council members Toni Lawrence and Adrian Garcia say they’d like Houston police to increase the number of officers on scrap metal patrol. But HPD is already short a thousand officers.
September 2004 is when this little blog first noted HPD’s looming manpower shortage. Not much has improved since then.
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