Well isn't this just a little ray of sunshine...
New Orleans -- the
gift that just keeps on giving.
Houston crime shows U.N. refugees the sinister side of America
When they came to America, some of them just a few weeks ago, they couldn’t wait to begin their quest for the American dream.
“We are refugees. We are from our country. We are suffering here,” Morisho Saleh said.
Saleh is a refugee from Africa. He’s just one of dozens of Africans brought to the states by a United Nations program that enables the persecuted to get out of harm’s way.
These victims of many wars were literally dropped off in southwest Houston at an apartment complex where there’s a brewing clash of cultures.
“I don’t know why people think we stink. We’re this … We’re that,” Saleh said.
While they thought their hardest obstacles would be learning English and having enough food to eat, in reality trying to survive the crime has moved to the top of the list.
Many claim they’re being assaulted. The latest such attack occurred Friday morning.
The refugee that was assaulted had to be taken to a local hospital. The attack was reportedly over a cell phone.
Over the last few weeks, at least six refugees have been assaulted.
The victims describe their attackers as black Americans, some of them allegedly evacuees from Louisiana.
One young victim says he and his sister were attacked.
“We don’t know how to protect ourselves. Some of us are newcomers. We are new to America,” he said.
Even though they’re learning firsthand about an America that has a dark underbelly, it’s not dark enough to extinguish their hopes.
Managers at the complex said they spend thousands of dollars on security, but the refugees say more needs to be done.
A truly sad story -- the article doesn't quite come out and say it but the attackers are most likely black, single-parent, drug using thugs who moved to Houston after Katrina and liked the opportunities for crime in their newly adopted city.
Crime statistics
prove this out.
From the always excellent
City Journal:
Houston’s Noble Experiment
Can good government uplift the New Orleans evacuees whom bad government harmed?
From the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina emerges a historic natural experiment: Can one city’s good governance help undo what another city’s bad governance helped create?
(An excellent article -- well worth the five minutes or so to read.)
From the
Houston Chronicle:
Homicide rate on track to be worst in a decade
Evacuees play large role in the rise, police say
With more than 300 homicides since January, Houston is on pace to record nearly 400 slayings for the year - which would be the highest number of killings the city has seen in more than a decade.
As of Oct. 16, the city had recorded 316 homicides, up 25 percent from the 252 slayings at this time last year. The Houston Police Department said an uptick in homicides by Hurricane Katrina evacuees has contributed to that increase.
"We recognize that the homicide rate is up as far as raw numbers and as well as percentages relative to the population," said Capt. Dwayne Ready. "We also recognize that Katrina evacuees continue to have an impact on the murder rate."
And from the
Washington Post:
After Welcoming Evacuees, Houston Handles Spike in Crime
Population Swell Fills Apartments and Strains Police Force
The southwest corner of this city is one sprawling low-rise apartment complex after the next, a once-hot real estate area that died with the 1980s oil bust only to be reborn in the '90s as a low-income, high-crime neighborhood. Now it's Katrina turf.
New Tony's Express, a neighborhood convenience store, is sold out of T-shirts and caps stenciled with the numbers 504, 985 and 337 -- the area codes for New Orleans and southern Louisiana. The emergency room of West Houston Medical Center is so busy treating Hurricane Katrina evacuees the staff jokingly calls itself "Charity West," a reference to New Orleans's venerable Charity Hospital.
And now, police say that southwest Houston, long recognized as a problem area, is facing another manifestation of the Louisiana exodus: Katrina crime.
Since Sept. 1, when an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Louisianans resettled in Houston after Hurricane Katrina, evacuees are believed to have been involved in 26 slayings, or nearly 17 percent of all homicides. The cases, according to Houston police, involved 34 evacuees -- 19 of them victims and 15 of them suspects.
Late last month, investigators in the Houston Police Department's Gang Murder Squad announced the arrests of eight of 11 suspects believed linked to nine homicides in the city's southwest side and two others in nearby Pasadena, Tex. The slayings occurred since November, and all the suspects are displaced New Orleanians who landed in Houston after the hurricane.
"We did not initiate this effort with the intention of singling out New Orleans or Louisiana people," said Lt. Robert Manza, a police department spokesman. "It just so happens that every single one we arrested and three we're looking for are New Orleans residents."
"The message is clear: We're going to relocate these men from apartments in Houston to a prison in Texas," Manza said. "That's going to be their next home."
Heh -- welcome to Texas where the LEOs mean what they say and have the will to back it up with action.
The "culture" of the urban black reminds me a lot of Golding's
Lord of the Flies.
Posted by DaveH at September 22, 2007 9:18 PM