This is ridiculous. Police arrests about 500 kids in Kmart parking lot on Westheimer.

Out of curiosity (and MovieManiac may be able to answer due to his personal experience), why are so many teenagers shopping at K-Mart at 12:30 AM? Why are they buying video games and scrunchies after midnight?

 

Damn...so many people fail to see the danger of unsupervised teenagers hanging out late at night with nothing to do but showing off and getting wasted. What do you think those kids were doing in that parking lot? Seriously. Think about it.
Do you think those teenagers were single handedly keeping that kmart in the black? cmon! If anything those kids were probably scaring away some business.
The kids WERE warned many times before...I don't need some article to prove that to me.
There was alcohol, drugs, and probably the occasional fight. If anyone on this board owned a business that had 500 teenagers hanging around it every friday and saturday night doing this same thing for 3 months...what would you suggest be done? HMMM? Call the cops and break it up? What happens when that doesn't work?
Oh somebody just got real pissed off at Juan because their brother was arrested...well tell you what, if your brother came home, beat to hell by some other kid(which I've seen many times) or worse, in a body bag(which I've unfortunately seen once when my friend was shot in the back while trying to stop someone from stealing his rims, of all things), then you would be all over the cops..wondering why they didn't do something about before it got out of hand.
Breaking up this hangout was one of the best things the cops could've done. So some arrest were made? Big deal. Nobody will have it permanently on their record and a few of them will be safer for it.

 

I lived that **** for 2 years, honey. That is SICKENING that humans would do this type of pansy-ass crap to other humans over NOTHING. GET A FUCCING LIFE HPD!!!!

 

I used to go buy things in the middle of the night/early morning all the time.

Guess I'm lucky I never got arrested.

 

See mateo's post. His neighbor's kid was one of the ones arrested. His neighbor said the kids were drinking. But I guess he had a reason to lie????

So if you accept mateo's post then the options were make arrests or have drunk kids driving. Where I turn on the cops is that it is clear they arrested people who weren't even involved with the loitering. That is unacceptable. I have said that many times in this thread. We have a philosophic difference here Batman...it seems as though you are against arresting anybody who isn't outwardly beating the crap out of somebody. Those kids knew that KMart didn't want them there and they did not heed the warnings they were given.

You had a few hundred kids in cars. If you start giving breatalyzers on the spot you have kids who will leave or worse. You don't know if any of those kids were armed, etc.

Once again, for clarification, I do not agree with the police arresting people who were not CLEARLY part of the group that was complained of. I have heard all of the heat of the moment arguments, but the police are trained professionals and cooler heads must prevail.

 

Hell of a Blue Light special...

Where is Jacklyn Smith when you need her?

 

Seems like that if those things were going on, the police would've charged some folks with whatever it was.

I guess I just can't get over the whole idea of being arrested for shopping.... heck, I'm not sure why people can be arrested for asserting their first amendment right to peacably assemble. I'm not sure why the Houston laws differ from what John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority of the Supreme Court when they struck down the Chicago ordinance.

I also wonder whether these arrests would really combat the types of things you talk about, if they were indeed going on in this parking lot amongst these kids. Will these kids simply go home now that they can't go back to K-Mart? Or will they just find somewhere else to go?

Are the loitering laws really what's keeping us from seeing little Johnny shot in the back? Are we really that close to the edge as a society? Are we really hanging by that string?

I guess my point is that if there is harm being caused by these kids peacably assembling, then prove it. We can assume all sorts of things were going on there, but nobody's proven that anything more than there were a bunch of kids hanging out in a parking lot. It assumes facts not currently in evidence to claim otherwise.

What should KMart have done? I couldn't tell you. But I think I would've taken some time and decided very carefully and try to think of something creative. If the goal is to prevent little Johnny from getting shot, perhaps I could come up with a business idea that appealed to these teens and gave them something worth doing beyond sitting in my parking lot. Maybe I could turn them from a nuissence to a customer of some sort. Personally, I would've viewed the situation as an opportunity rather than an inconvenience.

There are businesses that would kill for that kind of near-by traffic. Find a way to make them your customers in a significant way and you've maybe saved your store from the next round of KMart shut-downs (assuming the company survives anyway).

And, again, I would think that the Houston police have better things to do than arrest people for standing and/or sitting.

 

So maybe we should be upset that the police ignored these transgressions and instead opted to arrest the people for loitering and trespass instead of for such offenses as Minor In Possesion, Drunk and Disorderly or what-have-you.

Is the HPD really protecting these kids when it is so willing to look the other way when it comes to alcohol-related offenses. I mean, mateo says there was drinking going on. The police didn't see fit to charge anyone with anything related to drinking despite the fact that nearly half (by Refman's estimate, and, of course, that only includes the drivers. So Refman may well be claiming that a much higher percentage was above the legal limit since sure there were some there who didn't drive there.... Speaking of, were there really 200 cars in that parking lot on the night this happened?) of the arrested teens were above the legal limit of intoxication in terms of DUI (and he wouldn't make that claim if it weren't true. Right?)

I'm damn appalled that the HPD takes such a lax view on underage drinking. Seems like we need to make some changes in HPD enforcement policies if peacably assembling is considered worse than teen drinking.

 

By the way, there was no mention as to whether these specific people were told to vacate the premises before the arrests were made.

Reading the state statute on criminal trespass, I'd have to say that unless these people were specifically told to leave the parking lot, the police had no right to arrest them. It's not criminal trespass until they were specifically asked to leave and instead continued to stay.

And by "asked to leave" that, of course, means that each person who was arrested had to have been asked to leave on that night. You can't say "Well, some other kids were asked to leave earlier" or that "They've been told in the past to leave". That doesn't appear to cut it under state law.

The only way to get around that is to post a sign saying that "Entry is forbidden". I guarantee there is no such sign, however, since entry is not forbidden into the KMart as far as I know (that would be really bad for business).

The state law, as written, doesn't seem to support this police action.

EDIT: I should say that the state law, as written, doesn't seem to support at least some of these arrests. And certainly none made at the Sonic.

 

Unfortunately, I understand this all too well and feel the same as you. I just had the unfortunate experience in growing up in a mostly poor and ethnic neighborhood.

 

I'm sorry, Refman, I just can't let this drinking thing go yet. Not when you use it as a way to say the cops had no choice but to arrest all those kids. It was nowhere in the article, nor in any other account except hearsay from mateo's neighbor. I don't doubt mateo's neighbor that there was drinking going on there. Show me a group of 4-500 kids, outside of a school function, I'll show you a group where there is SOME underage drinking. And I agree that underage drinkers should be punished. If they (or anyone else, of age or not) drink and drive, they should be arrested.

Did mateo's neighbor say that 400 of them were drinking? That 200 were? 100? Did he say there weren't any designated drivers? I agree with you agreeing with everyone else that people who weren't doing anything shouldn't be arrested. I strongly disagree that this whole incident was a choice between arresting 400+ kids, and taking them to JAIL, or allowing 200 drunk drivers to wreak havoc on our fair city.

If that was the case, just ONE of them would probably have been charged with PI. As far as we know, NO ONE drove drunk. And as far as we know, there was not rampant underage drinking with intent to drive drunk.

Maybe we should send the cops to every single high school party. If they catch one kid drinking (or hear from mateo's neighbor that it happened), maybe we should arrest the whole party.

They were not arrested for drinking, they were not arrested for drinking and also they were not arrested for drinking.

You are diverting the argument here to protect your beloved police force.

I do not believe that violent crime is the only circumstance under which someone should be arrested. But if you'd ever been to jail, you'd understand why I think they should be more careful about arresting the right people and why I think that anyone who says "so what? it's just a night in jail. probably do em good" is an *******.

I disagree with a lot of the current laws. But I don't come on here to complain when someone gets arrested for smoking weed. I expect people to get arrested for that, as stupid as I think that law is. I do NOT expect a bunch of teenagers to go to jail for hanging out (or even partying) in a store parking lot. I expect them to be warned and possibly even ticketed. This incident will teach them a lesson, though. You're right there. It will teach them to hate and distrust cops. I guess they might as well learn it now.

 

I've agreed that was wrong from the beginning.

Point out where in the Constitution it says that I can assemble on somebody else's private property without their consent. You won't find it. Had this been public land then we have a different story and a Constitutional nightmare. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that I can peacably throw a kegger on your front lawn. Or assemble to have a sports chat on your front lawn...or anything else on your front lawn. It's the same thing except KMart's front lawn is paved. I know that if I assemble my buddies on your lawn I am subject to leaving your place in cuffs...that's the way it works because we value private property rights.

When did it become KMart's job to give these kids a place to hang?

When did Johnny or anybody else getting shot have anything to do with this?

KMart does not have to allow them to be there just because they "aren't hurting anybody." It is their right as a property owner/lessee.

In Texas, for those under 21 the legal limit is a LOT lower than what you may expect. The last I heard it was .07 with plans for zero tolerance. I think zero took effect in the late 90s but I'm not 100% on that.

Right. so we've got people bashing the cops without knowing all the facts. In regards to those who were in the group that was complained about, I choose to reserve judgment. I am put into a position to defend the cops because people are looking to hang them without all the relevant facts.

Asking them to leave as a group would suffice I think. We don't know whether that happened or not. Maybe we shouldn't rush to judgment.

We agree on this...and to the ones who were coming out of the store after making purchases.

If the cops are called to a high school party and they see alcohol...many of them will be leaving with the cops...the others will have slipped out the back door.

Now you're questioning my motives and insinuating that I am compromising my integrity due to some blind loyalty to the police. There's no need to assail my integrity here. I certainly never questioned yours.

When precisely did I say that???!!! I really hope that you're not talking about me because I didn't say that , I don't think that...and I wouldn't appreciate being called an ******* for no reason.

Wow...we agree. Unless of course somebody is driving under the influence.

 

Uh... Didn't their constitutional rights get violated? Wouldn't the 4th normally come into play here? Really not sure, but it seems like it would.

I realize that the businesses would likely have displayed warnings against this ("No Loitering"), but from the way it sounds these kids were treated, I have to wonder. Those cops must have been real efficient in reading so many people their Miranda rights...

I know that the cops can arrest you and give you a BS charge just to get you to spend a night in jail (usually a P.I. charge will do, since no real proof is needed on their part), but this is outrageous.

I'm sure that 99% of these kids will appear on their court dates and get this thrown out (like the arresting officers are actually gonna show up there for all of them... not), and everything (except the arrest) will go off their records, but this is still a gross misuse of power in my judgment.

Metinks some lawyers will make some cash offa it, tho. And there will probably be alot less "loitering" in that parking lot in the future - and maybe a little less money spent at the businesses that host it (especially the KMart)... Bad move on their part in the long run. They'll pay for it.

 

Batman, I seriously doubt they were ALL drinking. Even my neighbor wouldn't be as bold to suggest that. (To be perfectly honest, Rob is a pretty mellow guy, and was just glad his kid finally got caught with his hand in the cookie jar...Robs not much of a disciplinarian). But Rob's kid did say there was some drinking going on, and the cops did tell Rob that there had been some drinking.

Why did Channel 2 and co not report this (the rumors of alcohol)? Good question. Perhaps they didnt test any of the kids. Perhaps there were too many kids there. Maybe the hung over kids didnt want to be on TV the next morning because they looked like hell. Maybe there werent that many drunk kids. Hard to tell. But I bet there were some. Hell, I used to hang out in lots myself 10 years ago and I'll admit that when we got busted the cops thought we were ALL drunk or high. Sometimes they were right, sometimes they were wrong. Sometimes we had DDs.

Sometimes I think that our local news is pile of crap...so inflamatory, so prone to make something out of nothing. Do you remember when they stopped letting teenagers cruise Westheimer? I dont recall them covering this as fairly to us kids. They tossed a couple of my friends in jail back then. I was pretty jacked, and acted like as ass about it, but never did I say ANARCHY TO PIGS or whatever was posted earlier. But I write that off to immaturity and anger.

The fact that alcohol was involved was not the crux of the decision, I just mentioned it because I bet it influenced the cops actions and I didnt hear about it on the news. Did they overreact? YES, I think they did. Was it within the scope of the law considering that the propriators of the KMart had been threatening police action for weeks? YES, I think so. Was the Sonic angle a mistake? TOTALLY.

Refman makes a good point, it was probably within Kmarts rights to have everyone kicked off. The cops had driven people off before, but they came back. They had heard rumors of drinking but COULDNT PROVE anything. So they used the big stick. Think of the bright side.....no one was maced....no one beaten...all the stereotypical anti-cop actions that we dread because it lessens the honor of the institution were avoided. Was it excessive..I think that was their point.

If I was Chief of Police, it wouldnt have been my choice of actions. And perhaps some innocents were arrested, I would bet on it. But I also bet that a number of these kids who claim to be at K-Mart to shop at 12:30 on a Saturday night are full of crap....but not all of them.

The Sonic situation is just stupid. But the guy losing his 10-year old kid at Sonic is worng on so many levels. There's a lot of stupidity here.

But NO ONE....and I mean NO ONE...should think its right just sue the city for money because they happen to hold a receipt for a bottle of water. Maybe get your case dropped, maybe get your court costs paid back...but my parents always told me, "bird of a feather flock together"....so if I didnt want trouble, I stayed away. These kids knew they were breaking the law. And no, the real shoppers werent. Hence the mess thats created.

Its not like a trespassing ticket screws up your life. I had 3 MIPs and got into college....and no I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth...oh wait, thats another thread, isnt it? Goodnight.

 

Well, surprise, surprise. The police ****ED up BIG TIME!!!

<i>Raid went to 'hell in a handbasket'

Officers say Kmart bust was flubbed
By S.K. BARDWELL
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford ordered an investigation Monday into the weekend arrests of hundreds of people gathered peacefully at a westside parking lot by police who were assigned to stop illegal drag racing.

Officers on the scene called the arrests "utterly, utterly senseless," and said the captain in charge, Mark Aguirre, ordered them to round up everyone who was outside the 24-hour Kmart Super Center or eating at the Sonic Drive-In next door.

The operation had been weeks in planning and involved dozens of officers. But officers involved said that when no drag racers were found, they were ordered to arrest the 278 people there.

Police on Sunday said 425 people were arrested, but Monday revised the count. Most were charged with criminal trespass.

"I couldn't believe we were being told to arrest all those kids. It was just utterly, utterly senseless," said one officer involved, who violated department policy by discussing the arrests and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Also taken into custody were 42 juveniles who were cited for violation of the city's midnight curfew. Thirty of the juveniles also were charged with criminal trespass.

Bradford issued a statement late Monday saying he had begun an inquiry into the arrests, including who was in charge and what instructions were given to the officers.

Two police supervisors who were at the scene said Monday that Aguirre, captain of the South Central Patrol Division, had taken over the operation after a dispute with the assigned leader at a staff meeting. Both blamed Aguirre.

"Captain Aguirre was put in charge, and it went to hell in a handbasket," said one, also in violation of department policy and requesting anonymity.

"That operation had been planned for weeks," one of the supervisors said. "It was not planned with the intent to arrest everyone in sight. It was to arrest drag racers."

Both police supervisors said the Sunday operation began under the supervision of Westside Patrol Capt. John Mokwa, in whose area it took place.

But when Aguirre angered Mokwa during a command staff meeting by insisting he knew how the operation should be conducted, he and Mokwa got the permission of an assistant chief for Aguirre to take over, the supervisors said.

Neither Aguirre nor Mokwa returned calls Monday.

The supervisors said the operation was part of a series of recent police efforts to stop illegal drag racing.

During a June 15 raid, police found more than 300 cars gathered in the 7100 block of Business Park Drive, where eight people were arrested for reckless driving and three for public intoxication. Police also issued 32 traffic tickets and cited 16 juveniles for breaking the city's curfew.

On June 22, another raid in the 7000 block of Westheimer to Texas 6 netted five arrests for reckless driving and 65 tickets.

Bradford's statement also said he plans to investigate why police arrested the people gathered in the parking lots instead of issuing citations as in the previous operations.

The Sunday raid "was a complete waste of weeks of work and a huge amount of manpower," said one of the supervisors.

"There are all those kids now, who have a criminal record, and don't deserve it," said the other supervisor.

Hundreds of young people gather in the parking lots of the Kmart and adjacent Sonic on weekend nights.

Those businesses and others in the area, as well as nearby residents, have in the past complained about the noise and litter, police said.

Police were interested in the spot's role as a race staging area, where young drivers admire one another's vehicles, then go to other nearby locations to race, said one of the supervisors.

The two supervisors said police had "scout cars" and undercover officers working surveillance at the gathering spot for weeks in preparation for Sunday's raid.

"But we got out there, and no one was racing," said one of the supervisors. "So Aguirre just said, `Arrest them all for trespass.'

"It was like, `Kill them all and let God sort them out,' " said the other supervisor. "I guess we're just lucky he didn't order us to fire warning shots into the crowd or anything."

Both supervisors said many of the people arrested were not in cars. Many were eating food from the Sonic, which was open until 2 a.m., or had been shopping at Kmart.

Monday, Kmart corporate spokeswoman Susan Dennis acknowledged the store has had complaints about the weekend night crowds.

"Our first concern is the safety of our customers and associates," Dennis said. "As for the action taken, that was the police. There was no directive from Kmart."

A woman who answered the phone at the Sonic on Monday said no one there wished to speak to the news media.


HPD's internal affairs division was flooded Monday with people filing complaints over their arrests.

"I was eating ice cream from the Sonic when I was arrested," 19-year-old Emily Demmler said Monday. She and several friends, all of whom were arrested, met at Demmler's house Monday to go file IAD complaints.

An IAD officer said many of those who filed complaints Monday were discussing lawsuits over the incident.

"I don't feel safe anywhere now," Demmler said of the experience. "It was really wrong, what they did."

Many of those arrested Sunday pleaded guilty in order to get out of jail quicker and go about the business of retrieving their cars, all of which were towed away.

Martin DeLeon, an HPD spokesman, said the tow fee is $103 and the storage fee averages about $15 a day, but some auto-storage facilities can charge more.

Ronald Beylotte, chief prosecutor for the city attorney's office, said the cases that are set for trial will probably be scheduled in four to six weeks.

<b>Aguirre has run afoul of department policy many times in his 20 years with HPD.

The most recent, an allegation that Aguirre used foul and threatening language to his subordinates, garnered the captain a written reprimand from Bradford, which was overturned by an arbitrator.

That incident also resulted in an investigation of perjury allegations against Bradford, who testified at Aguirre's hearing that he doesn't use profanity to his subordinates.

Bradford later was contradicted by an assistant chief, who testified that Bradford had once called him a quite profane name.</b></i>

I guess the kids weren't really a bunch of delinquents.

 

Now the facts come out. Now I retract any defense that I made to the cops. KMart didn't call the cops to have them run off. Aguirre ordered his men to do this unilaterally. That in itself is illegal. Had KMart asked that something be done...it would be a different story AS TO THOSE PARTICULAR KIDS. NOT to anybody at Sonic etc.

Arrest everybody in sight???!!! WTF???!!!

I certainly hope Aguirre has been relieved of his badge. He'll probably be releived of some of his money in a civil rights lawsuit. I don't know if the city will be held liable though. It's complicated. But I think the Captain can be sued personally.

Maybe Aguirre should have respected KMart's private property rights to allow the kids to be there on that specific night. It boggles my mind that Aguieer acted unilaterally on this.

His men were following orders. I know I know...many will say a weak defense. If you were building up a pension and were trained to do this one type of work in a bad economy you wouldn't risk your job over it either....principle does not feed your kids.

Totally wrong...Aguirre should lose his job and his pension regardless of how long he's been a cop.

 

There is no evidence that Aguirre had ever done anything like this to the public before. Maybe he has...I don't know. But assuming all of his policy breaches had been within the deartment and not involving the public directly then I see no reason that HPD would have expected he would do something like this.

 

Of course, our lawns aren't public places. The KMart parking lot is. Unless they've specifically told each person to vacate the premises on that night and that person never left, there was no legal right to arrest them.

Never. People have made the point, though, that since the police busted up this get-together, Houston is a safer place and these kids are better off. I question whether simply not having them congregate at KMart will actually make any difference overall.