HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Police chased a man who they say stole an SUV. It happened around 1am ending on Persimmon at Magna on the northeast side.
Police had pulled over the stolen SUV and put one of two suspects inside in handcuffs. But the other man jumped back in the vehicle and took off. He eventually crashed and police arrested him as well.
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Police are trying to track down the suspects who shot a man in his own driveway while trying to steal one of his brand new cars HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Harris County deputy constables want to find the suspects who shot a man in his own driveway. It happened around 11:15pm Saturday at the victim's home on Roydencrest, near Dawn Lilly in northwest Harris County.
Deputies say a family was returning home from a car dealership where they had just bought two new cars. The victim was in one car and his wife and child were in another car.
As soon as the man's family went inside the house, the suspects ambushed him and tried to steal one of his brand new vehicles. They shot him once in the chest.
Constables believe the suspects followed the family home from the dealership.
The man is expected to survive. The shooters remain on the loose.
Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »Another driver recorded the cars as they sped off on The Woodlands Parkway near FM 2978. The question now is whether those street racers committed a crime.
The video of the race lasts less than 10 seconds. The race itself ended on a median off The Woodlands Parkway. It happened on Thanksgiving morning, and it was originally thought to be just an accident. But now with this video, it could be a crime.
Though it may not be obvious by his current vehicle, Gerod Rush is a car enthusiast. So when two Corvettes sat in front of him at an intersection in The Woodlands on Thanksgiving, he was intrigued but even more curious about what might happen next.
"I kind of had a gut feeling something was going to go wrong," he said.
So following his gut, he grabbed his cell phone and recorded.
In slow motion, you can see the Corvette on the right loses control and smashes into the Corvette on the left sending it deep into the woods. Rush says it appeared no one was seriously injured.
Eyewitnesses immediately called 911 and troopers responded. Later that day, Rush posted the video on YouTube, calling the drivers two turkeys.
"These were adults," Rush said. "To act this way, to me, is just kind of irresponsible."
Though we had just seen his wife, no one answered at The Woodlands home of the driver who appeared to have caused the crash.
Rush says he didn't post video, which is nearing a million views, to get anyone in trouble, but he hopes it sends a message.
"Maybe this will help teach somebody a lesson if these guys actually face consequences, that hey, before I pull up at the light and race this guy, I remember what happened to those guys on YouTube and maybe it will save lives, who knows," he said.
We're told DPS investigators do have a copy of the video, and Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon says he's aware of it as well. They are waiting for troopers to complete their investigation to determine what, if any, charges are appropriate.
Street racing is a Class B misdemeanor in Texas that is punishable by jail time and/or a fine, as well as a suspended license.
You can read more about this story on The Courier of Montgomery County, our Houston Community Newspapers partner.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local » HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A group of teens trying to avoid police ended up crashing into a squad car instead. Four young suspects were in police custody Saturday after leading police on a brief chase and then slamming into a deputy's patrol vehicle, officials said.
According to authorities, an off-duty police officer spotted a vehicle he believed was stolen in the parking lot of a Food Town at S. Kirkwood Rd. near Bissonnet St. in the Alief area.
The officer approached the car, which was being driven by a young female. She said her boyfriend was the one who got the car, officials said.
The girl contacted her boyfriend by cell phone and told him that she had a flat tire. When he arrived with his three friends, investigators say they spotted the cops around the car and tried to speed off through the Food Town parking lot.
Just down the road at Kalewood and Herald Square, a Precinct 5 Constable's Office deputy was set up in an effort to cut them off when his patrol vehicle was T-boned by the suspect's car.
The four teens were taken into custody and were being questioned by police Saturday night. The Pct. 5 deputy was not injured in the crash.
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CLEAR LAKE SHORES, TX (KTRK) -- A dead tree, blinding lights and a blue tarp -- a woman claims those are all things her neighbor has been using to harass her for years. So now she's suing.
After getting no satisfactory resolution from the homeowner's association or police, one Clear Lake Shores homeowner felt there was no alternative but to file suit, claiming harassment. But her neighbor says there is more to the story.
In a neighborhood where the view sets the mood, what Lynda Michaelski has seen from her surveillance cameras, she calls "disturbing."
"This is what we've caught him doing. Can you imagine what we haven't caught him doing?" Michaelski said. "I want him stopped. This is unacceptable behavior. It's wrong."
She says she had 13 cameras installed over a year and half ago at her Clear Lake Shores home. She says they then caught next door neighbor Bernard McIntyre once erecting a cross at her fence; another time at about 5am in a bathrobe, adjusting the light, in what she claims is an attempt to shine it right into her home.
"He scares me, you know? I'm scared of him," Michaelski said.
Based on this video, Michaelski accuses McIntyre also of poisoning her 100-year-old oak tree. On another occasion, you can see him apparently back at that fence, putting up a tarp and tossing what, by all accounts, is a roll of toilet paper over it, leaving it hanging.
"Unbelievable," Michaelski said.
McIntyre admits doing this. He says because he was tired of looking at a statute of the rear-ends of three frogs, which Michaelski had placed on the fence.
"I just put some toilet paper up and say, 'Here, go wipe them,'" McIntyre said.
He thought at first that the statues were obscene.
McIntyre claims Michaelski has been the one harassing him ever since he took a stand against her in a legal matter years ago involving another neighbor. He insists he's done nothing wrong.
"She's using lawsuits basically to bully people around so that they don't say anything critical about her," McIntyre said.
We have learned McIntyre pled no contest recently to a charge of illegal dumping. He says though it was just throwing leaves over Michaelski's fence.
As far as the allegation of shining the lights into Michaelski's home, McIntyre says he was just trying to blind the surveillance cameras.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)It's a scary situation for any parent. The five-year-old is new to the school and according to the principal she was dropped off early before classes started. As a result, the school's safety plan is now under the microscope.
Veronica Hogarth thought Scott Elementary School was a safe place, until Monday morning.
She said, "I heard somebody banging on the door and crying for help."
To Hogarth's surprise, it was her five-year-old daughter Heavenly. The kindergartner walked home seven blocks after she got locked out of the school.
Hogarth explained, "My daughter asked her to go to the restroom. She said sorry they are all locked; you'll have to hold it. My daughter took it upon herself to go to the restroom. She went out the wrong door, so the doors are not being watched."
To make matters worse, a stranger accompanied the kindergartener home. The woman ran off after the little girl recognized her house.
A neighbor is the only one who saw this woman and right now Heavenly Hogarth isn't saying much about her, so her mother's not sure what her intentions were. But she thinks it's odd the woman didn't even come to the front door.
"She just let her walk, what if this wasn't her house? If you as a parent, and you just take off? Maybe her intentions were bad," Hogarth wondered.
Hogarth called police and the school and says she got angry when school staff members told her they were unaware that her daughter was gone. She walked her daughter back to school and had a long talk with the principal who promised her things would be different.
"They are going to have bathrooms open at that time," Hogarth said. "They are going to have a person standing at the exit doors."
HISD issued the following statement to Eyewitness News:
"HISD officials are reviewing an incident this morning at Dogan/Scott Elementary School in which a kindergarten student left campus unsupervised. According to the principal, the child's older sister dropped her off between 7:10am and 7:15am. This is 15-20 minutes before the school opens at 7:30am, and 45-50 minutes before instructional day at Dogan/Scott begins at 8am. The child, who is new to the school, wandered off campus and returned to her home. School officials are reviewing their early-morning procedures, and the child's mother has been made aware that students are not to be dropped off before 7:30am." (Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, TX (KTRK) -- A motor home crashed and burst into flames Saturday, killing one person in Montgomery County. State troopers say the motor home was towing a minivan this afternoon on U.S. 59 near Fostoria.
The trailer crashed in the woods. Witnesses started breaking windows to try rescue the driver, but they had to run for cover when propane tanks started exploding and the trailer caught fire.
The driver died in the blaze.
The victim's identity has not been released.
Northbound lanes of the highway were blocked for more than five hours while crews investigated the accident and cleaned debris from the road.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »The Harris County Sheriff's Office says Chad Foster worked full time at the church as a youth minister. Investigators say he and the 16-year-old girl met at church.
Foster, 32, is charged with three counts of sex assault of a child. Investigators say he worked since January as a youth pastor at the Community of Faith Church on Becker Road and met a 16-year-old girl there this summer, when the two exchanged phone numbers and started texting each other.
According to detectives, Foster and the teen began having sexual relations at his home on Jelly Park Stone Drive in July, just miles from the church. Authorities say the pair had sex at least six times at the house from August through mid-October.
Court documents show the teen says Foster pushed her to keep their relationship secret. She told investigators he said, "...how important it was for her not to tell anyone ... because of the age difference." But she told deputies she started to feel bad.
"She became uncomfortable with that and eventually did tell a teacher at her school and an associate pastor at the church," a prosecutor told Eyewitness News.
Community of Faith's Executive Pastor Donald said, "It's an ongoing investigation."
Butler would talk only generically about the children of the congregation.
He said, "For us, our students are the most important thing with us. We're cooperating with authorities."
Investigators do not think Foster might have had similar relations with any other teens at the church.
Foster resigned from the church earlier this month. He is in custody at the Harris County Jail, held on $90,000 bond.
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HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Crews in downtown Houston were cleaning up Sunday morning after a vehicle crashed into a building
It happened around 2:30am at the Houston Pavilions on San Jacinto near Polk.
Police say the driver of a sports utility vehicle was T-boned on the driver's side by a small car.
The impact caused the SUV to veer off the road and crash into the building.
No one was hurt and it's not clear who was at fault for the crash. Both drivers claim they had a green light.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)Noel Sosa-Ruiz had been on the run since the late-October tragedy at a southwest Houston dental office.
Officials say he traveled to Florida where he stole a boat then made his way to the Bahamas.
U.S. Coast Guard authorities say he shot himself as he was approached by officials.
Noel Sosa-Ruiz had been on the run from police for almost two weeks, and it all came to an end in a bizarre way with the USCG approaching him in the Atlantic Ocean.
USCG officials say they came in contact with the 41-year old murder suspect Friday morning when they got word that a boat with a single operator onboard appeared to be stranded near the Bahamas.
That's when a USCG helicopter dropped a radio, raft, food and de-watering pump for him.
Authorities say Sosa-Ruiz only took the radio and used the pump to re-fuel and take off.
More than seven hours later, authorities say he ran out of gas again. Good Samartians found him and alerted a USCG crew who discovered the boat had been stolen out of the Florida Keys.
As crews approached, he shot himself in the chest and died.
Sosa-Ruiz had been on the run since late last month when Houston Police Department investigators say he walked into a southwest Houston Smiley Dental Office and shot and killed Yodani Cruz-Rojas -- the mother of his two children.
The USCG is investigating this incident. HPD is also investigating.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »Patrick Henry grew up in Houston loving trains.
"My dad worked for the railroad for 41 years and I got to travel when I was a kid on private cars," Henry said.
Over the years his love grew into obsession, and now he owns two of the cars that make up what's become the most over-the-top, expensive private railroad car collection in the world.
"There are only probably 50 actual running private cars and then again we have 20 today," said Henry.
Some of the cars were built as early as 1918 and carried presidents dating back to Harry Truman. But here, history meets high-tech.
"We have satellite TV so we can watch the football games," Henry told us.
There's wifi and even a master bedroom with a king sized bed and luxurious amenities.
"You always want your nicest bedroom in the middle because it's the smoothest ride. You're not over the wheels," he said.
All 20 cars come with their own kitchen and personal chef.
"A range a stove a dishwasher... a full kitchen, but very small as you can see," the chef said.
And this one, the oldest car in the fleet, even has a working fireplace.
But few train cars in history have come with a view like this -- 360 degrees of countryside.
"Domes are very rare; there's probably only about 10 of these running anymore out in the United States. But we have a dome car upstairs where you are sitting now that you can sit 16 to 20 people," Henry said.
They're called "yachts on wheels" -- home away from home for the rich and famous.
But you don't have to own a car to experience one. Henry charters his two cars for a whopping $8,500 a day. Expensive, but not quite as steep if you factor it all in.
"They still come with a chef. They still come with a crew. But because it's just one car and it might be room for eight people or 10 people you can charter for $2,000 a day," said Henry.
Most clients are professional sports figures or big businesses who rent the cars for major events like the Super Bowl. But it's becoming more popular for family vacations.
"You have a lot of families that will do it because of the privacy," said Henry. "But I mean it's all over the board."
A chance to experience this old way of travel in a whole new way.
"It's almost euphoria it really is. All your problems go away," he said.
Amtrak engines pull the train, so they are able to go to any city where Amtrak provides service.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local » HOUSTON, TX (KTRK) -- One person is dead after an SUV crashed into the back room of a house in the Montrose area. It happened in the Montrose area on West Alabama near Driscoll just after 2am.
Three people were inside the SUV when the driver somehow lost control and went through the parking lot of Divino restaurant and then barreled through a fence and crashed into the side of the building.
One person in the SUV died in the accident. At least two others were pinned inside the vehicle for a while. They were taken to the hospital with injuries.
Neighbors tell us the building that was hit is part business and part residence. A woman who lives there was seen walking around after the accident, apparently unhurt.
The victim hasn't been identified. The accident is under investigation.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local » HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A mysterious fire started early Sunday at a west Harris County neighborhood swimming pool. The blaze was reported around 1:30am on Berkshire Manor Ln. near Timbercreek Place Ln.
When firefighters arrived, flames were shooting from the pool's storage facility and water pump.
The fire spread across the grass and came close to some nearby homes, but firefighters got control before it caused any additional damage.
No one was injured. Arson investigators are looking into the cause.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local » HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Legendary Houston radio icon Dennis Maurice "Crash" Collins died Sunday after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 68 years old. Crash was a Nashville native who found his way to Houston in 1962. He graduated from Lamar High School and started earning a living by playing bass guitar while he attended the University of Houston.
He helped start Rock 101 (KLOL) with Pat Fant. In 1971, "Crash in your Dash" made history by mixing and playing his own show.
Crash was active for over four decades and could be heard on six radio stations -- KUHF, KLOL, KILT, KULF, KNUZ and KZFX.
In addition to radio, Crash released a Christmas album, appeared on local TV shows, had a career doing voice-overs and appeared at many local clubs. He also served as an auctioneer at charity events and golf tournaments, and was declared Volunteer of the Year for The University of Texas Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital in 1988.
Crash was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2010.
Crash is survived by his wife of 26 years, Roxana Marx Collins, his children, Lacy Collins Price and Travis Lee Collins, and his mother Ann Grummer.
A "Bash for Crash" benefit for the family will be held at 12:30pm on November 13 at the Concert Pub on Richmond Ave. in Houston. A memorial will immediately follow.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local » HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A sports utility vehicle flipped on the Sam Houston Parkway late Saturday, sending three people to the hospital. Houston police say around midnight Saturday night, an SUV lost control on the Southwest Freeway entrance ramp from W. Sam Houston Pkwy. S.
It hit a wall and rolled over, sliding down the ramp.
Eight people were in the SUV, including three children.
Rescue crews were forced to cut the roof of the vehicle to reach the pinned driver.
Three people were sent to the hospital. Two of them were in serious condition.
(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »
HOUSTON -- Like a lot of people growing up in Baytown and the other blue-collar towns east of Houston, Wade Williams never thought about college. Why would he? For an earlier generation, the refineries and petrochemical plants along the Houston Ship Channel had provided anyone with a high school diploma - sometimes not even that - a ticket to the middle class.
But it's not your grandfather's economy anymore, a shift that has helped to create a post-recession paradox of rising suburban poverty even when jobs are available.
Almost 23 percent of Baytown residents live in poverty, up dramatically over the past few decades and higher than in Houston's other suburbs. Education levels have remained low, and many people don't qualify for the high-paying jobs that the city has to offer.
"People still have the image that the refinery jobs are guys with monkey wrenches and a hard hat," said Baytown Mayor Stephen H. DonCarlos. "They are high-tech jobs, and young guys can make $70,000 or $90,000."
Increasingly, those jobs require more education or experience, along with rigorous background checks and drug screenings.
"It's not as easy now," said Lionel Jagnanan, a manager at Jacobs Engineering and a 35-year veteran at various plants and contractors. "Companies want young people to go to a college, to go through operator training or technical training."
Williams, a 20-year-old from Hardin, got the message. He found work with an industrial contractor in Baytown after graduating from high school, but quickly realized that his opportunities were limited.
"I decided I'd stop being a roughneck and make some money," he said.
Now enrolled in a process technology program at Lee College, Williams hopes to avoid the boom-and-bust cycle of hiring and layoffs that plague unskilled workers and to break the contradiction that has ensnared Baytown - good jobs and a growing population, while both unemployment and poverty rates are stubbornly high.
"We're somewhat puzzled," DonCarlos said. "The job market in Baytown has been very, very good."
Baytown has always been about oil and jobs.
Located on the north shore of Galveston Bay, 30 miles east of downtown Houston between the San Jacinto and Trinity Rivers, the area began to boom with the Tabbs Bay oil strike in 1908, and its industrial future was cemented when Humble Oil built a refinery there in 1919.
For the next half century, "you were out of the social loop if you did not work for Humble," said John Britt, coordinator of the honors program at Lee College and a history professor there for 47 years.
Humble is now ExxonMobil, joined by Chevron Phillips and Bayer as the town's major industrial employers. But the plants have continued to shape the city of almost 72,000, drawing a diverse workforce over the past 60 years.
African-American workers arrived to fill construction jobs at the plants, said John D. Marquez, a Baytown native and assistant professor of African-American and Latino/Latina Studies at Northwestern University.
Latinos followed in the 1970s, as the plants began to rely more on lower-paid contract workers.
Marquez's new book, WetBlacks and Brown Panthers: Foundational Blackness and (New) Latino Subjectivities in the Gulf South, is about the cultural transformation in Baytown and elsewhere along the coast, a shift that was tumultuous at times.
Baytown is now 43.4 percent Latino and 15.5 percent African-American. Most other residents are Anglo.
The 2010 American Community Survey found 22.7 percent of Baytown residents live in poverty, the highest rate among Houston's suburbs.
That's up from 15.5 percent in 2000, and a sharp increase from 1970, when the census found just 5.8 percent of families were below the poverty level.
The poverty level in 2010 was defined as $22,314 or less for a family of four.
Poverty has increased in suburbs across the country over the past decade, but the growth was by no means even. Just 3.3 percent of League City residents were at or below the poverty level in 2010, and the rates were similar in several other Houston suburbs.
David Mohlman, executive director of the United Way of Baytown, said need has gone up since Hurricane Ike hit in 2008.
"As time went on, we've seen a significant increase in the need for food, more so than any time that people can remember," he said.
People who came to Baytown for post-hurricane construction work may have added to the need when that work ended, Mohlman said.
Unemployment in Baytown was 11.6 percent in September.
Education levels suggest another explanation.
Almost 75 percent of Baytown residents age 25 and older had a high school diploma in 2010, up from 52 percent in 1970. But the percentage with a bachelor's degree hadn't budged.
Just 12.8 percent of people had a bachelor's degree or higher in 2010, less than one-fourth the level in more prosperous suburbs and about half the state average.
The statistics suggest that the economic challenges facing Baytown and a number of other Texas cities go beyond the recession.
"Corporations are able to demand more education," Marquez said. "There's less opportunity for someone with just a high school education."
That's not news to Nicole Hempel, 30, who spent the past 12 years as a bartender in Baytown.
"The money's here, but all the money leaves town," she said. "All the (plant) operators live outside of Baytown."
Hempel, a single mother, is hoping to capture some of that money when she graduates from the process technology program at Lee College in Baytown.
The program offers a one-year certificate and a two-year associate degree and enrolls about one of every six students at the community college.
Some plants and contractors still hire workers who have only a high school diploma. But Bryant Dyer, lead instructor for the program, said that is changing as the work becomes more technical.
Technicians earn about $75,000 in base pay, with overtime pushing it to $100,000 or more, he said, attracting even people with four-year degrees in other fields.
"If you want to be in this field, this (class) is the heart of it," Hempel said. "It's the only decent job in Baytown."
(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »
This SUV left the roadway and slammed into a tree. Officials said one person was killed in the crash (KTRK Photo / John Mizwa) HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Emergency officials confirm they are investigating a fatal accident in southwest Houston. It happened Saturday morning on S. Gessner at W. Airport.
According to officials, a sports utility vehicle left the roadway and slammed into a tree in the median.
Additional details were not immediately available. We have a crew at the scene and will bring you more information as it comes into the newsroom.
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