New Orleans failures led crime here
Suspects such as Ivory Harris were released despite charges in violent offenses

By KIM COBB
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

NEW ORLEANS - When Hurricane Katrina hit, Ivory "B-Stupid" Harris was living at 2800 Perdido, the parish jail. It was his home away from home.

The 20-year-old man had racked up a staggering list of arrests in New Orleans, including two on murder charges. But he was never convicted of any serious crime.

When New Orleans flooded — five days after a local crime commission criticized police and prosecutors for doing a poor job of putting violent criminals behind bars — Harris was one of thousands of inmates farmed out to jails throughout Louisiana.

And when he was released in Shreveport on Nov. 3, Harris became Houston's problem and a key figure in Houston's new crime controversy.

Harris is among 11 Katrina evacuees suspected of transferring their New Orleans turf battles to Houston and carrying out homicides, robberies and kidnappings that began after his release from Shreveport. Houston police classify the suspects as extremely violent.

Harris is still at large, and the police and public are pondering how much crime former residents of New Orleans brought to their host city.

Harris went back to his home territory at least once during the period in which he is suspected of committing crimes in Houston. He was arrested in New Orleans Jan. 4 on a criminal trespass charge — and released on a $2,500 bail bond.

"Houston is feeling some of the pain from the failure of the New Orleans criminal justice system, " said Rafael Goyeneche, head of the watchdog Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans.

Harris, he said, is a prime example.

"The people who are the most dangerous know the system the best," Goyeneche said.

Critical reportsThe crime commission's damning report less than a week before the hurricane said that only 7 percent of those arrested were ever convicted and that 60 percent of all convictions were for misdemeanors. It also said violent offenses such as murder, rape, battery or assault made up only 5 percent of all convictions during 2003-04.

Another commission report in March underscored how easy it was for people with long records to get their bonds reduced and obtain release before trial on charges of committing violent crimes.

One judge out of 13 was responsible for 83 percent of the commercial bond reductions the commission studied in 2003-04. The same judge was responsible for releasing Harris on his own recognizance in at least one case.

As a result, Goyeneche said, violent criminals allowed back on the street were frequently able to intimidate victims and witnesses before trial, resulting in prosecutors dismissing cases they found nearly impossible to prove.

"Every year, there are one or two people killed who were scheduled to testify in criminal court," Goyeneche said.

New Orleans' crime rate dropped dramatically when the floodwaters emptied the city of most of its residents.

Goyeneche said the criminal justice system has a chance to start over.

"It's a huge opportunity," he said. "I think both the police chief and the DA realize their future depends on what they can accomplish in a few months."

Chance to rebuild

Police Department spokesman Capt. Juan Quinton agreed that the criminal justice system has an opportunity to rebuild, but he was unwilling to lay the blame for previous failures at the feet of the police or the district attorney's office.

The Police Department prepared the best cases possible using "all the resources at our disposal," he said, also citing the problem of witnesses who were afraid to testify.

"Then the DA's office was facing the problem of the courts assessing low bonds," Quinton said.

"That's not something within the purview of the New Orleans Police Department."

Repeated requests to the office of New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan for information on Harris' case dismissals and criminal justice system problems cited by the Metropolitan Crime Commission went unanswered.

Harris had a record of more than a dozen arrests as a juvenile before he was charged with the April 9, 2002, shooting death of 24-year-old Alphonse McGhee in the courtyard of the CJ Peete Housing Project. An Orleans Parish grand jury indicted Harris as an adult on first-degree murder charges, and he sat in jail for the next two years during a series of pretrial motions and while attorneys debated his mental competency.

The district attorney's office dropped the charges against Harris on June 10, 2004, after a key witness's identification was deemed inadmissible at trial. Harris could have been eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

The arrests continue

Less than a month after his release, he was arrested on a weapons charge.

He was in and out of jail for the next two years, including arrests on charges of aggravated battery, simple burglary, another weapons charge and a slew of misdemeanors.

Last spring, Harris was charged with murder again. He was accused of gunning down thrift-store owner Yoshio Watson, 30, on May 12. His picture ran in the "Wanted by the Law" section of the New Orleans Times-Picayune twice before he was arrested June 19.

But on Aug. 22, a week before Katrina threw the city into chaos, the district attorney's office dropped those charges against him.

Harris' frequent defense attorney, Dwight Doskey, could not be reached for comment.

Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman said Harris remained in jail as the floodwaters began rising because other charges were pending.

Harris was evacuated to the Caddo Parish Jail in Shreveport, where he was released Nov. 3 on orders from a New Orleans municipal court judge pending a later hearing date.

In December, New Orleans evacuee Jack Jabocy Griffin, 20, was shot to death in his car in Houston. The police have named Harris as a suspect and think Griffin's death may be tied to a pool-hall shooting in November.

Harris also has been charged with aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping in Houston.

"So he was let out, went to Houston and started causing problems there," said Crime Commission senior analyst John Humphries.

Encouraging reforms

The commission report released in August urged scrapping a cumbersome case-screening process for one that has arresting officers submitting felony-arrest reports directly to prosecutors to ensure stronger cases.

The commission recommended videotaping all interrogations of felony suspects for possible use in trial and urged police and the DA's office to measure success based on the percentage of arrests that result in convictions.

"Really, a lot of the violence in New Orleans was, I think, a direct result of the failure of the criminal justice system," Goyeneche said. "And I mean every component, including the public, because the public is one of the main reasons why a lot of these prosecutions didn't go forward. ... Because they failed to cooperate."

Quinton, the police spokesman, said recently appointed Police Superintendent Warren J. Riley is fine-tuning the department.

"The homicide division is reorganized — we only have one group of individuals handling homicide cases," Quinton said. "They are highly trained and highly motivated.

"No longer can officers become a detective in a short amount of time."

 

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These fuckers deserve to sit in TDCJ for years being cheap labor. I cant belive what NO CJ system did.  NOt only did the storm free alot of sex offenders and gang thugs to move around and start doing this crap in new places, it left our LEangencis with out news on th3ese people. but look they are now locked up and if i know texas...thy will be locked up fdor some time.