In the five years following the murder of freshman Haruka Weiser, UT has increased safety measures on and off campus to reduce crime risk. However, some advocates say additional steps could be taken to improve student safety. Weiser was walking home from a class at 9:30 p.m. on April 3, 2016 when she was killed by Meechaiel Criner. Criner was sentenced to life in prison in 2018.
Just days after a jury found former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, Austin Justice Coalition called on the community to continue making progress. "It was one very small moment that the justice system seemed to be working," Chas Moore, who runs Austin Justice Coalition, said.
State Sen. Bryan Hughes laid out a bill which would protect school districts from liability in cases of armed employees. Hughes (R-Mineola) presented SB 534 before the Senate Committee on Education Thursday afternoon.
After a year of near-constant traumas for Black and brown Americans—from particularly deadly COVID-19 outcomes, especially in prisons and jails, to a series of high-profile murders by police—another devastating murder has rocked the United States. Near the site of Derek Chauvin’s trial in Minneapolis for his killing of George Floyd, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was murdered by a police officer after being pulled over for a traffic violation.
On Feb. 8, the Houston Police Department (HPD) arrested a homeless man, 57-year-old Israel Iglesias, for allegedly handing an undercover cop 0.6 grams of methamphetamine. Iglesias died the next day in the county jail. Results of his autopsy remain pending.
George Floyd’s loved ones appeared before a state House committee Thursday to support a sweeping police reform bill named for the former Houston resident, who was killed last May when a Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground with a knee to the neck for almost nine minutes.
Social justice activists from around the state are planning to gather at the Texas Capitol building Thursday to urge state legislators to pass police reform bills int
Last year, according to documents obtained by The Appeal, the Houston Police Department received a tip that drugs were being traded in an encampment for unhoused people at the 700 block of Booth Street, near Moody Park. On Oct. 20, as COVID-19 cases were just beginning to surge around the nation to previously unseen levels, at least two officers took an undercover stroll through the encampment.
Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis and Jay Jenkins of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition joined The Appeal Live to talk about Houston jail overcrowding and COVID-19.
As of Sunday, there were 8,889 people incarcerated inside Houston’s Harris County Jail, the largest facility of its kind in Texas. Of that number, 7,772—more than 87 percent—are being held pretrial. Nearly half of the people held in the jail, according to the county’s online jail population database, have been arrested on nonviolent charges.
