Katrina sends N.O. crime to Houston

[UptownNewOrleans]

Like the old saying goes, a few bad apples can spoil the bunch. Houston welcomed the evacuees with open arms and this is the thanks they get. I feel bad for Houston because while New Orleans' violent crime rate dropped by 60%, theirs increased by the same amount.

[nowensone]

Houston on pace for highest homicide rate in a decade, and it's attributed to Katrina evacuees.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hurricane/4277375.html

This is sure to bolster the calls by Houstonians to send the evacuees packing!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hurricane/4153486.html

[UptownNewOrleans]

To a large degree, it can. During the November/December period, Houston's murder rate didn't just magically shoot up 70%, some of the evacuees had something to do with it. Most of the N.O. criminal element went to Houston trying to take over and got hit up with gunfire, & from then on it kept going back and forth. It's like you murder one of ours, we'll take out one of yours.

[nowensone]

I'll concede to some of what you mention, but still no where near the full 60% seesaw. What I'm wondering is just how much of that increase was due to local criminals taking the great extended opportunity of the chaos the situation created to clean house, remake turf boundaries, etc., that kind of stuff. Too perfect an opportunity. Or in some cases combating the New Orlineans transplants. A friend was a hotel manager in the Astrodome area when all this happened, he saw some shocking things and he soon demanded to be transferred and then quit, his take was that it was only about half the transplants, based on what he had picked up working there of gang signs, vehicles, familiarity, etc.