Houston Community News >> Houston Mayor Wants to Send Katrina Criminals Back to Louisiana
9/2/2006 Houston - On the topic of crime in Houston, there has been talks between the mayors of Houston and New Orleans to send back to Louisiana any evacuees who commit serious crimes here. Mayor White hopes the proposal will appease some angry Houstonians.
The agreement was first mentioned publicly in a heated meeting Wednesday night on Westside crime. "We want the New Orleans residents to go home," said one frustrated resident. One year after Katrina, Houston's welcome mat appears to be fraying around the edges.
"Our taxes are too high to be putting up with this mess," a Westchase resident told Mayor White Wednesday. The "mess" is the rise in violent crime which coincided with the arrival of Katrina evacuees. "We know the stats. We feel the stats," another resident said. Mayor Bill White has been working for months behind the scene in a search for a new justice for any Katrina evacuee arrested and convicted of a crime.
"I'd like to see 'em sent back to Louisiana so they could serve out their sentence in Louisiana prisons," said Mayor White. That would allow the State of Texas to separate out the bad apples and send them back to Louisiana. "I talked to Mayor Nagin about it and told him it was the fair thing to do, the right thing to do," explained Mayor White. "And he said -- right here in this room six weeks ago -- that he agreed." Mayor White hopes the proposal will cool tempers.
(Contributed by Free Republic)