Assistant Chief Cantu said the department is working to figure out why, if all four shootings happened at the same time, a 911 call wasn’t placed for at least an hour.
The location of the shooting is in the Gulfton area, if you recall, that is where the Mayor of Houston had the following to say about the residents of that area.
Whitmire had previously said to a media outlet that Houstonians in Gulfton are largely undocumented immigrants who “just want basic services. They don’t want to be part of the Galleria. You think they’re going to be welcome in the Galleria?”
The keyword above is for undocumented immigrants with HPD, who call ICE whenever they run across undocumented immigrants on that list of about a million people. Why would any person who is undocumented or lives with undocumented people want to get involved? Why risk getting deported?
HPD can keep denying that it is working with ICE; however, the vast majority, if not all, of the undocumented community knows that they are turning people in, even in cases where the undocumented are witnesses or the ones reporting crimes.
If one calls 911, they know who is calling; the people who may have seen something know that phones have caller IDs.
Could I be wrong as to why it took one hour? Of course, but I don’t think I am. Whitmire and HPD are going to have to decide what is more critical: turning people over to ICE or having people step forward to help them solve crimes.
Back in the 1970s, HPD created the Chicano Squad to help solve many of the murders that occurred in Hispanic areas. I don’t think it would help today, because back then, HPD wasn’t turning witnesses over to ICE.
Imagine you are undocumented and have a family to support, either here or back in the country from where you came. Would you risk getting deported? Reporting a murder does not bring that person back.
There are a large number of Hispanic Officers within HPD, and many of them do speak Spanish. The issue that stopped the immigrant community from working with HPD back in the 1970s was a language barrier; the deportation barrier may be harder for HPD to overcome.
So Chief Cantu, decades of work have basically been thrown out the window by what some HPD Officers are doing.
