Local News Archive
June-August, 2008
US Census Bureau: Waco fifth poorest city in state of Texas (August 27, 2008)
21-year-old man dies at hospital after Saturday shooting (August 24, 2008)
Victim Services team offers help during toughest times (August 24, 2008)
Elderly woman assaulted, robbed in front of house (August 18, 2008)
Street Crimes Unit arrests three (August 14, 2008)
McLennan County commissioners approve hiring company to build additional jail (August 14)
Law enforcement agency urges probe over McLennan County jail contracting (August 12)
Vote on county-run jail draws nervous jailers' applause (August 6, 208)
WPD Street Crimes Unit arrest 12 in prostitution sting (July 26)
Experts can't put finger on reason behind flurry of crime in Waco (June 3, 2008)
West Waco neighborhood fearful after May attacks (June 5, 2008)
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U.S. Census Bureau: Waco fifth poorest city in state of Texas
By Terri Jo Ryan, Waco Tribune-Herald, August 27, 2008
A U.S. Census Bureau report released Tuesday indicates Waco is the fifth-poorest city in the state, with individual poverty levels closer to those experienced in border towns than cities of its own size.
Sociologists and demographic specialists at Baylor University’s Center for Community Research and Development who analyzed the census data found that Waco and McLennan County have poverty levels well above the national level.
In 2007, the poverty rate for families in the city was 21.9 percent. In the county, 13.7 percent of families lived in poverty. At the individual level, the numbers are even more grim: 27.6 percent of Waco residents in the last year lived below the poverty level, as did 19.2 percent of McLennan County residents.
The national rate for poor families is 9.5 percent, and 13 percent for individuals.
The figures have changed little since 1990, Baylor researchers said.
Charles Tolbert, Baylor sociology department chairman and a local census data analyst, cited the stark contrast between the city and the county as a gulf of affluence.
Tolbert said the persistence of poverty means the nonprofit organizations and faith communities that battle social ills “need to redouble our efforts. We have big city, inner city problems here.”
Carson Mencken, Baylor sociologist and a research professor at the university’s Center for Community Research and Development, said. “Unfortunately, the poverty rate tends to stay pretty stable over time.”
Because it is a communitywide issue, it takes a community effort to deal with it, he said. “Can a church or a nonprofit (agency) eliminate poverty? Probably not. But they can alleviate it.”
Susan Cowley, a founder of Talitha Koum Nurture Center, a mental health therapeutic nursery, said the program offered by its parent organization, CrossTies Ministry, seeks to nip multigenerational urban poverty in the bud. CrossTies has been forging relationships with the poor of the Kate Ross community for more than 20 years.
“Poverty is not going to disappear because we pour money into the justice system,” Cowley said. “It won’t go away because we yank government benefits and tell adults to get to work. It’s all been tried. What has not been tried with any breadth or duration is approaching the trajectory of poverty when it can be altered for the long term — at birth.”
More than one in three children in Waco live in poverty, Tolbert said. That data is particularly sobering, his colleagues added, considering the data released Tuesday does not reflect the economic realities of 2008, with rising gasoline and food prices further straining family budgets.
One reason the number of people living in poverty remains high is because the costs of basic necessities such as food, housing and medical care are rising faster than the wages of low-income workers, said John Alexander, executive director of Waco Habitat for Humanity
“The economic forces that are working against those struggling to make ends meet are very powerful and complex,” he added. “However, that doesn’t mean we should give up. Rather, we must continue our work — through nonprofits, communities of faith, government agencies and other means — to make sure that all of our neighbors have the basic necessities of life.”
Larry Lyon, an observer of the area’s socioeconomic conditions during his nearly 30 years with the university’s Center for Community Research and Development, said he is increasingly concerned about the disparity between city and county poverty rates.
Waco, he said, has endured much more out-migration than cities of comparable size. The flow of folks from the inner city to the surrounding suburbs is more akin to the pattern of Dallas, Houston and San Antonio than Tyler, Abilene and Bryan-College Station.
The trend is indicative of a mobile middle class, Lyon said, one that “votes with its feet” for infrastructure such as newer schools and homes on larger lots.
“The poverty problem in (the city of) Waco should be the concern of all McLennan County residents,” Lyon said.
Tolbert agreed, calling for greater economic development efforts.
“We shouldn’t have to be known as a place of low wages,” he said. “I applaud the entities that work to bring jobs to Waco that pay more than the minimum wage.”
Scott Connell, senior vice president of strategic development with the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, said local business leaders acknowledge they have work to do.
“We always want to push the issue” of providing better-paying jobs, Connell said. “We should always be striving for a better situation for our residents.” Back to top
21-year-old man dies at hospital after Saturday morning shooting
By Van Darden, Waco Tribune-Herald, August 24, 2008
Waco police are investigating the Saturday morning shooting death of a 21-year-old man, authorities say.
Robert Louis Nevarez, of Belton, was found lying in the 2500 block of Cole Avenue around 4 a.m. Saturday, suffering from a gunshot wound to the head, Waco Police Department spokesman Steve Anderson said.
Nevarez was transported to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, where he later died, Anderson said.
No one has been arrested in connection with the shooting and Anderson said no suspects have been identified.
Police are asking that anyone with information about this shooting call Waco Crime Stoppers at 753-HELP. Back to top
Victims services team offers help in toughest times
By Kelsie Hahn, Waco Tribune-Herald, August 24, 2008
Rock-hard nerves and a tender heart are needed to help crime victims at their point of crisis.
Just ask the 33 members of the Waco Police Department Victim Services Unit.
Members of the unit — three paid staff members and 30 volunteers — are dispatched on cases from sexual assaults and fatality accidents to questionable deaths and family violence.
They lend a sympathetic ear and helping hand to victims: providing a sounding board, helping them find community resources or ushering them through the initial criminal justice procedures. They’re not counselors or social workers — they’re a shoulder to lean on in some of the toughest situations a person may ever face.
“We see the bad, but we also meet very remarkable people. They’re all survivors, they’re all winners, they beat the odds,” said Gwen Daugherty, who has volunteered for three years. “It’s a feel-good feeling, to know that you’ve been able to help somebody in what would be their worst time.”
Some of the volunteers experienced crime in their own lives, others simply saw a community need and stepped forward, but all of them have compassion, said volunteer coordinator Samantha Carbajal.
“They’re very highly trained,” she said. “(It takes) someone who’s compassionate and hardworking. You have to know yourself really well and what situations you can handle.”
The unit doesn’t have a shortage of volunteers, said director Brenda Penland, but the numbers have dropped from a high of 45 volunteers as some have moved or changed jobs, and she wants to expand to about 50 volunteers to better handle the unit’s expanding responsibilities.
“The call-outs have increased dramatically,” Penland said. “Our scope has certainly enlarged, and just having the officers to call us out more, that has increased.”
When the unit started in 1994, it mainly responded to homicides and attempted murders, Penland said. As training has increased, the unit now responds to some family violence cases, aggravated robberies, sexual assaults and suicides to assist the victims or their families. In 2007, the unit responded to 531 calls and logged nearly 10,000 volunteer hours, Penland said.
The unit operates with a $118,296 annual budget from the city and a $42,080 Other Victim Assistance Grant, according to the city.
Daugherty was one of the six volunteers honored by the city for logging 1,377 hours in May, above and beyond their commitments, while one staff position was vacant and a second was on medical leave, Carbajal said. Others honored were Dannie Archie, Susan Gibson, Sharon Self, Walton Strickland and Sharon Wadle.
Daugherty is the controller for V&L Management Co., and Strickland, 76, is a retired pastor who’s assisted the unit for more than four years.
“Meeting people in their needs and so forth has been part of pastoring work, so it melded real fine with my training and experience that I’ve had,” he said.
Strickland had to learn to re-orient himself from considering only his congregation to looking at the community as a whole, and he says working with the unit has opened his eyes to crime in Waco.
“I just had not been exposed to the amount of it, the regularity of it. That was surprising,” he said. “I’m really surprised in a big way as to how much of this type of difficulty we have to deal with.”
Kelly Mann was studying criminal justice at McLennan Community College when she answered a call for volunteers three years ago.
Now the mother of two young daughters, Mann is bothered most by calls involving the deaths of infants and children. And she wishes she could do even more, she said, when she sees fire displace families and destroy all their belongings.
“You’re watching as everything they’ve worked for has just burned down. And you can’t promise them that the insurance will pay or you’ll be able to help get them clothes for their children,” she said.
Volunteers say they find the work rewarding, but they must take time to talk out their own feelings with staff or other volunteers. Every one has tough cases and certain situations that hit harder than others, Daugherty said.
“There’s always that one case that stays in your mind, and it’s the one that makes you question why you do what you do. But then you got back and do it again, because maybe you made a difference that day,” she said. “We’re all encouraged not to keep our emotions to ourselves.”
For Daugherty, cases involving the deaths of children always hit her hard. Her toughest case was the death of two young girls in an apartment fire, and she vividly recalls accompanying the parents to see the bodies of their daughters in the hospital.
“I went in with the parents, and little children aren’t supposed to be laying there with white sheets, they’re just not supposed to,” she said. “For me, I had to go back and talk that out long and hard, and when they had visitation at the funeral home, I asked for permission to go to the visitation.”
Volunteers almost never have contact with the victims they help following the initial crisis, Daugherty said, which made her request unusual. If volunteers happen to see a victim in public, they must wait for that person to acknowledge them first, a policy that protects privacy.
“That was for me. I wanted to see that the little girls were OK, as OK as they could be,” she said.
At the end of the day, Daugherty said, every member of the unit cares about Waco and wants to reach out to the community.
“We’re here, and our sole purpose is to be here for you and to help you with whatever you need,” Daugherty said. “We don’t judge, we’re not the police, we’re here to hold your hand and do what you need, and it amazes people that we’re here.” Back to top
Elderly woman assaulted, robbed in front of house
Waco Tribune-Herald, August 18, 2008
Waco police were asking for the public’s help Sunday finding a man they say hit an 85-year-old woman in the face and stole her purse.
The assault and robbery happened about 8:30 p.m. Saturday as the woman got out of her car and was trying to go into her home in the 4800 block of Meadow Wood Drive, said Waco police Sgt. Gary Harrison.
A man came up and punched her in the mouth, then grabbed her purse with an unknown amount of money and ran, Harrison said. The woman was taken to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center and treated for non-life-threatening injuries, Harrison said. Her condition was unavailable late Sunday.
Police did not have a description of the assailant Sunday. Harrison asked anyone with information on the incident to call Waco police at 750-7500. Back to top
Street Crimes Unit Arrests Three
Waco Tribune-Herald, August 14, 2008
A tip led to the arrests of two men and a woman and the seizure of crack cocaine, codeine, marijuana and a firearm Wednesday night in Waco.
Acting on the tip, which an off-duty officer received, the Waco Police Department’s Street Crimes Unit was dispatched to the 900 block of Houston Street in search of Marvin Wayne Lyons, 28, who was wanted for surety off bond on narcotics charges, police said Thursday.
Officers spotted Lyons immediately, but as they started to get out of their cars, Lyons, and several others who were in the front yard of a home at 920 Houston St., ran to the rear of the residence, police said.
Officers arrested Lyons after a brief foot chase.
They also took Johnnie Odel Brooks, 38, into custody on child support warrants.
Lyons and Brooks were also charged with evading arrest, police said.
The officers recovered more than 300 grams of crack cocaine, more than 200 grams of codeine and almost 13 grams of marijuana, as well as a firearm, police said.
Officers also arrested Brenden Joyce Gamble, 22, after marijuana was found in a bag that had been removed from the front seat of a vehicle parked outside of the residence.
She was charged with possession and with tampering with evidence, police said Thursday.
Officers also seized two vehicles and more than $6500 in cash, police said Thursday. Back to top
McLennan County commissioners approve hiring company to build additional jail
By Tommy Witherspoon, Waco Tribune-Herald, August 14, 2008
A divided McLennan County commissioners court voted Wednesday to renew its contract with Community Education Centers of New Jersey to operate the downtown McLennan County Detention Center and authorized CEC to finance, build and operate an 871-bed jail next to the one on State Highway 6.
With commissioners Lester Gibson and Joe Mashek voting against the proposal, County Judge Jim Lewis and commissioners Ray Meadows and Wendall Crunk voted during a budget work session Wednesday to allow the private company to build the jail at no cost to taxpayers.
Commissioners recessed their regular Tuesday morning meeting instead of adjourning it, which allowed them to take action at Wednesday’s session.
Mashek, who raised legal and ethical questions about how the process evolved at Tuesday’s regular meeting, said Wednesday that he is not against a private company building the county a jail. He said he was concerned that the county only gave prospective bidders 45 days to submit proposals when county officials have been discussing the problem of jail overcrowding for at least two years.
“It was the rush and the big hurry in the way we did it that I don’t like,” Mashek said. “When the jail standards commission tells us that we will only need room for 1,200 prisoners by 2015 and we have jails that hold 1,261 inmates now, why are we building a new jail?”
How the numbers add up
Before the vote, Adan Munoz Jr., executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, told commissioners that he projects that McLennan County would need jail space for 1,152 prisoners within two years, 1,200 beds by 2015 and 1,488 beds by 2030.
The McLennan County Jail on Highway 6 has a 932-inmate capacity, while the jail downtown that has been leased to CEC since 1999 has room for 329 prisoners. But the overcrowding and growing female populations have caused inmate classification problems for jail officials.
The county’s contract with CEC is set to expire Oct. 1. Mashek had proposed that the county let that lease expire and take the downtown facility back to help ease overcrowding at the Highway 6 jail.
The county has been operating under a remedial order from the state jail commission because of staff-to-inmate ratio problems. That remedial order was lifted this week.
Lynch weighs in
After Munoz’s presentation, commissioners asked Sheriff Larry Lynch for his recommendation about how to proceed. Lynch said “option 3,” which calls for CEC to finance, build and operate the jail on 9 acres adjacent to the Highway 6 jail and for the county to renew its lease on the downtown jail.
County officials have said that CEC, which submitted the only proposal for the county’s consideration, intends to charge the county $25 per inmate per day to house its inmates in the new jail. It costs the county $45.31 a day per inmate to care for inmates, officials have said.
Meadows said that after debating the issue for almost two months, sometimes heatedly, it is “time to move forward.”
“We have discussed it and re-discussed it for four to six weeks or longer now, and it has been looming over us,” Meadows said. “If we are going to do it, it was time to get going.”
Meadows said the deal should take care of the county’s needs for 20 to 25 years, at the end of which the county will own the building.
“I think that it is the wheel of fortune,” Meadows said. “Jails are not going to go away. I still don’t know how a private company can do it cheaper than we can, but they say they can and it is a very good deal for the county.”
No tax hike
Critics of the proposal, including current county employees, have said that CEC does it by staffing its facilities with underpaid, insufficiently trained employees.
Lewis said the deal with CEC will give the county a new jail with no burden to the taxpayers.
He said any other approach probably would have meant a 5 percent tax-rate increase for the county.
Crunk agreed, saying that many other counties are clamoring for a deal like the one McLennan County just closed.
“I think it is great opportunity and an excellent business deal for the taxpayers of this county,” Crunk said. “They are getting a jail without having to raise our taxes to do it or to try to pass a bond to do it. I think it is a heck of a business deal.”
Overcrowding downtown
Commissioners were being pressed by the Oct. 1 contract deadline with CEC on the downtown jail. Had the county taken the structure back, as Mashek suggested, the county would have to hire 50 to 60 employees almost overnight and would spend an extra $5 million a year to operate it, Lewis said.
For almost two years, the county has housed 50 to 100 overflow prisoners at the downtown facility because of overcrowding at Highway 6. Because of that, the county’s profit margin from its lease with CEC has dropped from about $800,000 a year to $200,000 a year, officials have said. Back to top
Law enforcement agency urges probe over McLennan County jail contracting
By Tommy Witherspoon, Waco Tribune-Herald, August 12, 2008
A spokesman for the state’s largest law enforcement association is calling for state and federal investigations into dealings between McLennan County officials and a private detention corporation as the county continues to negotiate jail contracts.
“First of all, we don’t believe anything that officials in McLennan County say anymore,” said Charley Wilkison, political and legislative director for the 16,500-member Combined Law Enforcement Agencies of Texas. “The credibility gap in this county is incredible.”
McLennan County Judge Jim Lewis, county commissioners and Sheriff Larry Lynch have been wrestling for years with the county’s jail overcrowding problem. County officials say they sought proposals from 14 companies nationwide on a variety of options, including privatizing the entire county jail system and building a new, 1,000-bed jail.
The county received proposals from just one company, CEC, which has had a contract to operate the downtown county jail since 1999. CEC contracts with several agencies, primarily federal, to keep prisoners at the downtown jail.
The company’s McLennan County contract, which pays Lynch $12,000 above his county salary of $88,000 to oversee the downtown jail, expires Oct. 1.
Commissioners voted last week for the sheriff to maintain control and operation of the county jail on State Highway 6, on a recommendation from Lynch and after weekly protests from about 50 jailers.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Joe Mashek has called for the county to take back operation of the downtown jail to help alleviate overcrowding and give the county more time to study the situation.
Wilkison said he will ask Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to investigate whether Lynch violated the Texas Public Information Act by failing to respond to CLEAT’s open-records requests for all correspondence between Lynch and CEC officials.
He said he also is seeking state and federal investigations about whether Lynch lawfully and ethically can accept money from the private vendor or whether it is a conflict of interest when he helps decide the fate of the jail system.
“The sheriff has taken $91,000 of personal money that goes into his bank account, and then he says: ‘I am still able to decide. I am still OK deciding whether it is in our best interest to privatize.’ That old dog won’t hunt. Nobody here believes that.”
The contract between the county and CEC, then called CiviGenics, originated when the late Jack Harwell was sheriff. The part of the contract that calls for payments to the sheriff, Lewis says, has not changed, although it has been renewed since Lynch took office.
Lynch did not return phone calls to his office or cell phone Monday.
Wilkison also charges that county officials should come up with more efficient ways to clear out the jail, especially of nonviolent first offenders. He claims the CEC contract pays Lynch more for more prisoners.
‘Artificial crisis’
“We think inmates are being kept in jail to create an artificial public safety crisis so the hue and cry for a new jail can come and the new jail can be privatized and built by CEC,” Wilkison said.
Lewis scoffed at that notion and said Wilkison’s claims are off-target. He said Lynch is paid the same in the contract with CEC whether there are 300 prisoners or none.
“It is still his responsibility to oversee that jail,” Lewis said. “By statute, it is the sheriff’s responsibility, whether it was Jack or Larry. That contract has not changed, and up until 20 months ago, we didn’t have a prisoner in that jail. So does that logic make any sense?”
Wilkison also charged that Lewis’ office is using “stalling tactics” by asking for an attorney general’s opinion about whether his office has to release 170 pages from CLEAT’s open-records request that Lewis claims are attorney-client privilege. Wilkison said Lewis’s office has released 1,300 pages to CLEAT pursuant to the request.
“We believe somewhere in that 170 pages will be some of the information that will tell the tale about how you get only one bid on a private prison,” Wilkison said. “If they have nothing to hide, then they have nothing to worry about. If they have done nothing wrong, then they should release it anyway.”
Lewis said attorney-client communication is privileged and exempt from open-records requests.
“That is just as standard as everything,” Lewis said.
Commissioners will continue to discuss jail proposals at their weekly meeting this morning. Back to top
Vote on county-run jail draws nervous jailers' applause
By Tommy Witherspoon, Waco Tribune-Herald, August 06, 2008
The McLennan County Jail on State Highway 6 won’t be privatized — at least for now.
It’s just what jailers and jail employees packing McLennan County commissioners court meetings the past six weeks have been waiting to hear.
For the first time in the six weeks since county officials began debating proposals to privatize the county jail system or parts of it, Sheriff Larry Lynch attended a commissioners’ meeting Tuesday. He didn’t speak at the meeting and wouldn’t discuss the issue later with the Tribune-Herald.
Commissioners, basing their decision on a recommendation from the sheriff in a memo dated Monday, voted Tuesday to keep the overcrowded, 931-bed Highway 6 jail “under the care, custody and control” of the sheriff’s office.
Before the decision was made, County Judge Jim Lewis suggested commissioners go into a lengthy executive session to discuss jail proposals with the county’s attorney, Herb Bristow, after a presentation by representatives from Community Education Centers, a New Jersey-based private detention company.
However, Precinct 2 Commissioner Lester Gibson and Precinct 3 Commissioner Joe Mashek asked Lewis to postpone the closed meeting until after commissioners voted on the sheriff’s recommendation to keep the Highway 6 jail under sheriff’s office control, saying the men and women who had attended weeks of meetings and packed the room again Tuesday deserved some peace of mind.
After the vote, the uniformed jailers, who feared loss of jobs, benefits or pay cuts, applauded the decision and let out a collective sigh of relief.
“You are talking about guys who have not been sleeping or eating properly. They are worried about the price of gas, mortgages, foreclosures,” said Ken Witt, president of the McLennan County Sheriff Officer’s Association. “But here, they have a little glimpse of hope, because if you don’t have a paycheck, you can’t pay for anything. So yes, they are going to go home tonight and they are going to rest and they are going to sleep and go back to work and they are going to be pretty cheerful about everything for the rest of the day.”
Commissioners sought proposals from 14 private companies nationwide to help the county deal with its jail overcrowding problem. Only CEC, which already runs the county jail in downtown Waco, submitted a bid.
CEC representatives Peter Argeropulos and Mike Wilson detailed the remaining options Tuesday, including the construction and operation of a new jail on 8.9 acres adjacent to the Highway 6 jail and a new contract to operate the downtown McLennan County Detention Center, which CEC, formerly CiviGenics, has leased from the county since 1999.
Last week, Mashek said the county should take back the 329-bed jail downtown when CEC’s contract with the county expires Oct. 1. That would help ease overcrowding at the Highway 6 jail immediately and give the county three to five years to plan for future jail expansion, Mashek said.
Commissioners are expected to address Mashek’s proposal next week, said Lewis, who appears to be leaning toward renewing CEC’s downtown contract and allowing it to finance, build and operate a new jail on Highway 6.
“Looking at their figures and listening to them proposing to charge $31 to $36, and it is all still negotiable, and it is costing us $45.31 to keep inmates?” Lewis said. “To me it is kind of a no-brainer. If we can keep them for the high of $36 and it is costing us $45 . . . ? That is not too hard to figure out.”
In its bid to build the county a new jail, CEC officials said they would secure funding through Municipal Capital Markets of Dallas, whose agents would finance the jail through the sale of revenue bonds to investors. After the building is paid off in 25 years or so, the county would own it, Argeropulos said.
He said the first phase of construction would include 710 beds at a cost of $38 million. Phase 2 would add another 152 beds for $9 million, he said, adding that the construction of the $47 million jail would not affect the county’s tax rate or debt service because CEC is paying for it.
When it is completed, CEC would charge the county $45.50 a day per prisoner and would charge federal agencies or others from $50 to $55 a day, he said.
If the new jail were built, Lewis said the county could move some of its prisoners to the downtown facility, where CEC charges $36 a day, and CEC could move its federal prisoners from downtown to the new jail and charge $50 or so a day, saving the county money, yet helping CEC’s profit margin.
Bristow, who also represents other Texas counties and advises them on jail issues, called CEC’s proposal a “very thorough, well-thought-out offer.”
“It is an opportunity for the county to have a facility built at no cost to the taxpayers,” Bristow said. “That is the bottom line. Economics, at the end of the day, will dictate the course of action.”
While Lynch said in a memo last month he wouldn’t have a recommendation until more information about CEC’s proposals was known, Witt said the sheriff lost backing from his “troops” by not speaking out earlier and for being a no-show at six straight commissioners’ meetings.
“He has lost a lot of support,” Witt said. “The fact that he hasn’t been here shows he really doesn’t care about the current situation. He has his own personal agenda that he wants to pursue and it is not consistent with us or public safety concerns.”
Jailers have charged that CEC’s record of screening, training and compensating officers and its care of prisoners is substandard, claims disputed Tuesday by Argeropulos. Back to top
WPD Street Crimes Unit arrest 12 in prostitution sting
KWTX-TV, July 26, 2008
Twelve alleged prostitutes were arrested in a three-night sting in Waco this week.
The Waco Police Department Street Crimes Unit hit the streets after residents in numerous areas complained of prostitutes walking around in their neighborhoods.
During the sting, police focused on various parts of Waco, including Waco Drive and Preston street, Waco Drive and Walker; and Harrison Avenue and Lottie.
The Street Crimes Unit was formed last summer to combat drug crimes and prostitution in area neighborhoods. Back to top
Experts can't put finger on reason behind flurry of crime in Waco
By Erin Quinn, Waco Tribune-Herald, June 3, 2008
They say crime rises when the temperature does. And when the economy plummets. And when more people turn to drugs.
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A MONTH OF MAYHEM
Violent incidents in Waco since May 6
MAY 6: Brass Rail Bar owner Aubrey Ray Smith, 68, is arrested after allegedly beating a customer with a pipe outside his bar at 3200 North 19th St. following an argument.
MAY 17: Baylor student Danielle Elliot is abducted at gunpoint while walking her puppy at 12:45 a.m. near the 1400 block of James Avenue. A man forces her into a car where he and an accomplice rob her and threaten to kill her and throw her body into the Brazos River. Elliot escapes by jumping from the vehicle, breaking both arms. Anthony Michael Garcia, 19, of Waco, has been arrested in the case.
MAY 19: William Allen Gregory, 47, is charged with two counts of attempted capital murder after allegedly trying to run down sheriff’s deputies with his pickup after they were called to his ex-girlfriend’s house near Elm Mott.
MAY 19: William Keith Payne, 46, of Hewitt, is arrested after barricading himself in his Oklahoma Avenue home and holding two women in their 80s hostage for four hours.
MAY 21: John Huerta, 24, is shot twice during a home-invasion robbery in the 900 block of North 17th Street about midnight. No arrests have been made.
MAY 21: Jesus Carillo, 27, of Waco, is arrested after allegedly ramming the cars of officers who tried to stop him on suspicion of drug possession at North 25th and Bosque.
MAY 21: Two men carjack the truck of Juan Salas, 30, in a parking lot at South 12th and Gurley Lane, but crash into a tree on University-Parks Drive after a police chase.
MAY 22: Joe Lewis, 34, is kidnapped, carjacked and shot after being lured to an apartment by a woman he met. Billie Jo Allen, 21, and Anthony Garcia, 19, of Waco, were arrested.
MAY 24: Liaquat Ali Sohl, 51, of Hewitt, is fatally shot in the parking lot of his business, Sohl’s Clifton Corner at 1330 East Waco Dr., near midnight. No arrests have been made.
MAY 29: Billy Jo Kemp, 22, is arrested after he allegedly punches James York, 69, in the face, causing him to fall down some steps in the 1200 block of Wooded Acres.
JUNE 1: A man shoots himself in the head after keeping officers at bay for more than an hour outside his home on 22nd Street, between Mitchell Avenue and Alexander Street. Police say Monday that the man survived the gunshot but no other information about his condition is made available.
JUNE 2: Charles Dwayne White, 44, of Waco is shot and killed in his backyard on Homan Avenue just before 1 a.m. after going outside to check the fuse box. No arrests have been made.
JUNE 2: The McLennan County Sheriff’s Office responds to a possible carjacking on Selby Lane around 3:10 p.m.
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In the end, though, no one can give a definitive answer for why the Waco area has seen a marked increase lately in shootings, abductions, carjackings and robberies.
The number of homicides in Waco has more than doubled compared to this time last year. Assaults are up as well.
A 44-year-old man was shot and killed in his North Waco backyard early Monday morning while working on a fuse box. His 15-year-old son was mere feet away in the house, waiting for him to return to watch TV with him.
A week before, police say, a 51-year-old Hewitt man was robbed, then shot to death in the parking lot of the East Waco convenience store he owned.
And the week before that, a Baylor University student was abducted at gunpoint in East Waco and robbed, police say. One man arrested in connection with the incident has been charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery in two other carjackings this spring.
In one of those, a man was shot.
Lee Seals, president of the Carver Neighborhood Association, says he and others in the East Waco neighborhood where the convenience store shooting occurred are unable to guess at reasons for the area’s rising crime problem.
But it’s on the minds of many.
“It has grown to be a big issue around here,” Seals said. “I’m just hoping and praying that we can get something done. I don’t know what to do. It’s my neighborhood and I’m not going to leave.”
He’s also confident the situation can’t get any worse.
Waco Police spokesman Steve Anderson said if history repeats itself, the crime scene will settle down.
“Normally and typically, it’s this time of year,” he said. “Our schools are letting out. It’s hot, so people are outside their homes more. This time of year across the country we typically see a spike in crime. You just hope it won’t continue all summer.”
Last May’s headlines weren’t much better.
There was the 37-year-old motel maintenance worker who, police said, was stabbed in the throat by a tenant who skipped on payments.
And the man shot in the leg in South Waco when he was apparently caught between two vehicles whose occupants were shooting at each other.
And a 50-year-old man who dragged a Waco police officer 84 feet with his car.
But can it really all be attributed to the time of year?
“How can I say that all these crimes are related to one certain thing?” Anderson said. “Crime is cyclical in nature. You’re going to have high times and low times.”
James Mitchell, president of the North Waco Neighborhood Association, attributes the crime wave in part to an increasingly dismal economy and the ever-present plague of illicit drugs.
“We have a lot of people in our neighborhood who work in construction trades and in the service industry, and they have always worked more than one job to make ends meet,” he said. “But unfortunately, when the economy goes down, it seems like it affects the people who have the least first. These people are suffering, and I think it’s to a greater degree.”
He said residents of his North Waco neighborhood, however, aren’t necessarily worried about violent crimes as much as property crimes.
“It’s difficult to have an economic downturn for this long and I think everybody’s feeling it, especially people who live paycheck to paycheck,” said Tamara Ballman, director of criminal justice and forensic science at McLennan Community College. “People are feeling a little more desperate.”
Anderson said the declining economy, including more home foreclosures and higher gas prices, have an affect. But he mostly blames drugs and decreased levels of punishment for criminals because of overcrowded jails.
“When you see robberies and such, most of the time, these people aren’t stealing items to get food for their children,” Anderson said. “They steal to support their drug habit.”
Hugh Riley, a lecturer in psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, said one negative factor often leads to another.
“As people feel they don’t have the opportunity for promotion and growth, you see more escape behaviors,” he said. “They’re going to absorb themselves in something that distracts them from that quiet desperation.”
Even in these troubling times, Riley says he prefers to equate Waco’s crime scene as the glass half-full.
“I think these things make the news because they’re rare,” he said.
Waco police continue to voice confidence in efforts to battle the crime situation. The eight officers of the Waco Police Department’s Street Crimes Unit, formed last year to combat drug crimes and prostitution in neighborhoods, arrested 825 people, many with multiple charges, during their first eight months on the job.
The officers have averaged about 103 arrests and about 159 tickets each month.
The unit’s chief focus has been North Waco, which last summer saw a wave of robberies — some violent — targeting Hispanics, possibly part of an effort to victimize undocumented workers who might fear seeking out the police for help.
Community leaders say the crime wave has fallen there since the street crimes unit hit the streets.
Staff writers Tim Woods and Cindy Culp contributed to this report. Back to top
West Waco neighborhood fearful after May attacks
By Erin Quinn, Waco Tribune-Herald, June 05, 2008
Residents of West Waco’s Mountainview neighborhood have become nosier since their 80-year-old neighbor was accosted last week by a stranger, robbed and slammed into his garage door at his home on Rosewood Drive.
Some residents have shaken hands for the first time. Others have become regulars at one another’s home, frequently checking neighbors’ welfare.
In May alone, Waco police say two other residents were robbed and assaulted within a few miles of the 80-year-old man’s house — one in a shopping center parking lot on Bosque Boulevard, the other at a home on Laurel Lake Drive.
“Everybody’s terrified,” said a 71-year-old woman on Rosewood Drive who didn’t want to give her name because she fears she’ll be targeted.
“I never locked my door and now I’m barricaded up like I’m in a prison,” said 59-year-old Pattie Herbert, who also lives in the area.
The 80-year-old widower, who also declined to give his name because he fears the criminals will return, says he spent two days in a hospital intensive care unit for a head and brain injury after the Friday night incident, which he said he can’t remember. Police told the man his cash and credit card were stolen and taken to a nearby gas station to fuel up a car.
Waco police officer Sofie Martinez says similar crimes occur across the city.
“Criminals look for the easy target,” she said. “They don’t think senior citizens are going to fight back. They think they’re going to be easy to overtake and may have money on them because they’re retired.”
She added, “Criminals will target a certain area and then move on to another. Today is Mountainview. Tomorrow might be somewhere else. They do their homework. They watch people, and their comings and goings.”
The Mountainview neighborhood has fallen victim to such crimes before.
Just eight months ago, 150 neighbors gathered in the nearby Mountainview Elementary School to listen for two hours as then-interim Police Chief Brent Stroman gave safety tips after an 81-year-old woman was robbed and hit in the head with a wine bottle and a 96-year-old woman was conned and robbed of her purse, police said.
Officers later arrested two women in those robberies.
“We’re upper middle class, retired,” the 71-year-old woman on Rosewood Drive said. “We’re all old Waco.”
As the neighbors talked Wednesday inside the woman’s home, they remembered other instances in the past when residents became fearful.
In May 2001, Orville and Ruby Loving were beaten to death in their home in the 3400 block of Forrester Lane. Orville, a retired railroad employee, was 89. His wife, a former real estate agent, was 86.
The double homicide has yet to be solved.
“I still think about that one,” the 71-year-old woman said, adding she knows the couple’s family.
A year later, in the 3300 block of Sturgis Lane, a married couple in their 70s were tied up and robbed at knifepoint in their home. They had said goodbye to guests and, when they returned to their living room, a man was standing in their hallway. A man was later arrested and pleaded guilty in that case.
Mountainview saw another home-invasion and burglary spree in September and October 2005. A man was sentenced to two life terms in one of those robberies.
“Seventeen years ago it seemed like almost every house on this street was robbed,” the 71-year-old woman on Rosewood said.
Waco police officer Steve Anderson said the first of the most recent incidents occurred just before 8:30 p.m. May 1 at a home in the 1800 block of Laurel Lake Drive.
A 60-year-old woman was coming into her home when she heard the door that leads from her garage being kicked in.
Anderson said a black man in his 20s wearing gloves and a black skullcap confronted her in her hallway. The man demanded money, credit cards and identification numbers. He pushed the woman down on the ground and covered her mouth. He took off with cash and a credit card.
At 5:20 p.m. May 23, a 71-year-old woman was leaving a store in the Fairgate shopping center on Bosque Boulevard and getting into her truck, Anderson said. A black man in his 20s, described as 5 feet 6 inches tall and wearing a green cap and a green and black shirt, ran up to her and ripped her purse off her shoulder, breaking its strap.
Her neck and shoulder were injured in the robbery, Anderson said. The crimes are still under investigation and Anderson couldn’t say whether any were related.
City Councilman Jim Bush, who represents the area, on Wednesday stressed the importance of residents’ active Neighborhood Watch group.
He said he and Mayor Virginia DuPuy recently rode around the area with the neighborhood’s citizen officers.
Wilburn Lessman, 78, is the neighborhood association’s security chairman and is active on Citizens On Patrol. He said he was surprised he hadn’t heard about the most recent crimes that seem to target seniors.
“We usually spend our time patrolling areas that have a lot of crime,” he said. “Out here, we just don’t have much trouble.”
He said Mountainview averages about 30 calls to police per month. Other areas, he said, average about 250.
Hearing of the recent incidents, Lessman said the Citizens On Patrol will actively patrol the area.
Officer Martinez said such programs should send a message to would-be criminals.
“It’s a great deterrent,” she said. “It tells criminals that these people aren’t as vulnerable as they thought they were. It makes them move elsewhere.”
And if the fact neighbors there are looking out for each other and are active in their neighborhood watch program doesn’t do the trick, the 71-year-old woman with the salt-and-pepper hair has another idea.
“Everybody thinks we’re vulnerable because of the color of my hair,” she said. “One of my neighbors said, ‘We all just need to dye our hair.’ ” Back to top