Andy Kahan / Crime Stoppers Joins Houston Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Andy Khn joins us from Crime Stoppers. I know you
keep stats and all this kind of stuff, Andy, but
I don't know how specific you are on this. Do
you have an idea about how many people in Harris
County are currently out on bond awaiting trial in committing
other crimes while they're out.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
That's a really good question, Jimmy, and it's hard. It's
hard to gauge because I'm just one person. I would
think that we should have an entity that actually keeps
track of this. Years ago, the District Attorney's office back
in twenty twenty one, they kept track and the numbers
were absolutely astounding. So I'm hoping that they do come

(00:38):
up with another report that shows how many people are
currently out on bond that are reascending. We just set
a segment last night on a crime that horrified most
Ustonians when you had several individuals posing as food delivery
drivers and did a home invasion. Luckily HPD showed up,

(00:58):
but there was a shootout and HPD officer was shot.
One of the defendants that was charged in his case
was out on multiple bonds, including a personal recognis get
out of you know free cart while out on bond.
He violated his bond in June of twenty fourth, July
of twenty four and August of twenty four no repercussions,

(01:20):
wasn't put back in custody, and now he had an
officer that was shot. That's the type of things that
we're seeing.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, you know, normal people just trying to live their lives, don't.
You're afraid to even open your door, doorbell rings, somebody
knocks on your door, even if you look out and
you think, well, they look like they could be real.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
You don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
We're all living in armed encampments.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Now. Basically what you have is, you know, a couple
of years ago coined a phrase call we're in a pandemic.
It's only called the bomb pandemic. And pretty much the
issue that we have right now. Our defendants are not
being held account when they're on bond and they have
repeatedly violated their conditions of bond. There used to be

(02:06):
an adage in Harris County and it was called one
bond per customer, And if you were out in bond
and you had violated your conditions at bond, especially if
you were charged with a new offense while out on bond.
Guess what you aren't getting back at again. Sadly, that's
not happening, and that's what we're seeing by repeated offenders

(02:27):
who have violated their conditions at bond, but no repercussions,
you know.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Even maybe the worst of all this, Andy is that
there are certain judges that are just very well known
for doing this, and many of them are running on
the post in November. It's not like we can go
to the ballot box and get rid of them because
there's nobody running against them.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah. Absolutely, I was kind of dumbfounded when I saw,
you know, a lot of the judges, and I think
competition is good, and I think you would want to have,
you know, somebody you know not running unopposed and at
least had give everybody the opportunity you're needing to make
his decision whether you want to keep the incumbent judge
or you want to try something else. But that's not happening,
And that's a sad reflection on what's happening to our

(03:10):
state of the state of politics and Harris Hanny. If
you can't even throw a candidate out there to even
make make a race even look like there's going to
be a race, so you have judges that are basically
going to remain on the bench.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yep, Andy, Thanks, as always appreciated from crime Stoppers, Andy
Kahn