Hurricane Katrina evacuees living in Houston are suspected of killing eight fellow Louisianans here between September and December

Roma Khanna:

Investigators now say evacuees were the victims or suspects in 23 homicides last year after their arrival, Police Chief Harold Hurtt said, more than doubling his department's earlier estimates on how many killings have been linked to evacuees. In a third of those cases, both suspect and victim had been displaced by the Aug. 29 storm.

People from Louisiana were victims in 18 of the 23 killings, police said, while they are suspected of killing people who are not evacuees in five cases.

The 23 killings represent nearly 20 percent of all homicides in the city during that period, according to Houston Police Department numbers.

Mayor Bill White said he was not surprised to see Katrina evacuees were the victims or suspects in a number of homicides because violent crime is up citywide, including in areas where high numbers of evacuees have settled.

"We had some homegrown criminals here before Katrina, and in some districts of the city you saw the effect of a concentration of criminals," White said. "Then, New Orleans had a bunch of law-abiding citizens and they had some criminals, too, and we got (both)."

Homicides were up 23 percent in Houston last year, with the largest increases occurring in southwest Houston in the final months of the year.

The increase has continued this year, Hurtt said, with homicides up 50 percent over the first weeks of January 2005. The city recorded 21 homicides through Tuesday. At least two of this year's slayings involve evacuees, one as a victim and another as a suspect.

"It is not a good way to start the year," Hurtt said. "But we have seen an increase since the middle of last year."

HPD has launched a number of initiatives to combat the rise in violent crime, including two multimillion-dollar programs to increase police presence in hotspots for violent crime. Under the initiatives, officers working overtime will perform more foot, car and bike patrols and monitor gangs in high-crime areas, particularly in southwest Houston.

The greatest proportion of evacuees participating in the city's housing voucher program is in the southwest.

Hurtt and White have asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to fund a portion of the recent $6.5 million overtime program because of the strain on the system from the more than 100,000 evacuees.

HPD also has begun to track all instances in which evacuees were the victims or suspects in crime, Hurtt said Wednesday.

"We did a good job of it while we had them all in the area of the (Reliant Astrodome megashelter)," Hurtt said. "But once they became dispersed across the city, we did not do quite as good of a job as we should have."

White and Hurtt have pointed to the poor management of apartment complexes as one cause for the spike in homicides, saying the managers do not do enough to maintain security gates and screen residents.

HPD on Wednesday offered training to 60 apartment managers from the Greenspoint area in north Houston, teaching them how to reduce crime through discussions about gangs, drugs and security.

Evacuee Thomas Brown said his southwest Houston apartment complex reminds him of life back in New Orleans.

"It's rough here, and this part of town is violent, but it's that way in lots of cities," he said.

On Dec. 31, two young evacuees were shot and killed in the complex, allegedly by an acquaintance from New Orleans.

"It was sad that they had to die that way," said Brown, 49. "They were just visiting friends when they got caught up in something."

Alvin Simms, 20, has been charged in connection with the shooting deaths of Calvin Clay, 23, and Keith Hayes, 19. According to police reports, Simms shot the men after an argument. Police said the three knew each other in New Orleans. Simms has not been captured.

Brown said he had heard the slaying was tied to "some old beef from New Orleans."

Others interviewed at the apartments Wednesday stressed that most of the New Orleans evacuees are good people, though some are rougher around the edges.

"In Houston, we're more laid back," said Anthony Steward, 25. "But it seems like life for some of these people was more 'gangster' in New Orleans. We're not used to that."

John Hunter Sr. has long heard stories of New Orleans' violent history from his son, a homicide detective with the New Orleans Police Department. Hunter, 60, says he lived in a part of the 9th Ward that was not particularly violent. "But across the canal, those areas were bad," he said.

Many young evacuees interviewed Wednesday refused to give their names for this story, but they complained that New Orleans evacuees have been unfairly blamed for all of Houston's crime.

"People look at us because New Orleans is known as the murder capital," said one man. "There's a big bias against us."

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