Houston will apply to receive a grant from the governor’s office for funding that will assist in paying overtime for officers tracking gang violence and activity.
What is it?
The grant is for $150,000 and will provide overtime funding for the Houston Police Department’s Northeast and Westside divisions for the gang suppression program.
Part of the fund will also go toward tracking and surveilling violent gang offenders and preventing and suppressing violent gang crime in their areas, per the agenda item.
The backstory
Two weeks prior, District J council member Edward Pollard tagged the council agenda item after questioning the decision to use outside funds when he had been trying to put forth overtime hours for the same division, but had not been approved.
“The dollars that I would like to put forward for overtime would be for community policing, specifically the District J Patrol, which is a modern approach to community policing,” Pollard said at the April 1 City Council meeting. “We know that HPD is spread very thin; they’re going to prioritize the assaults, the murders, before they tackle the lower-level quality-of-life crimes.”
Pollard said his funding for overtime would allow officers to address lower-level crimes.
“This has a lot of support from the community,” he said.
Pollard brought up the same concern of funding not being approved during the March 17 City Council meeting. Mayor John Whitmire said the funding from the governor’s office is “totally different” and that the city should accept dollars from the state.
“This is necessary to continue this overtime gang task force, which is being received by the governor’s office,” Whitmire said.
The takeaway
Council unanimously approved the ordinance. The Houston Police Department and Chief Noe Diaz will oversee the grant process.
