Dr. Greg Fremin - Retired HPD Captain Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven, twenty two on News Radio seven forty KTIH Chris
crock and for Jimmy Barrett, this is going to be good.
Doctor Greg Freman, retired HPD Captain Friday. Today is the
twentieth anniversary of Katrina, the spike in crime and Katrina,
but now it's being a race by the left and
the media, Doctor Freman, what do you remember and what

(00:20):
do you know? What can you tell us about how
bad the crime got after the Katrina evacuees got here,
how much of an impacted to have it in crime
in our police department and the ability to police without
the prior to the Katrina evacuates arriving.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Exactly. And Chris, thank you for having me on your
show this morning. And I appreciate your commentary. I had
a front row seat to it twenty years ago as
a lieutenant. And let me just say first things first,
this was one of the most spectacular assignments that our
department had to engage in next to Harvey. With mobilizing
our police department. We had tens of thousands of refugees
and evacuees coming in from the Greater New Orleans area.

(00:57):
Our entire department was mobilized, working twelve hour shifts. I
was working at the Astronome Reliant Stadium Reliance Center. We
had tens of thousands of people converging in into the
Houston area and into that complex within literally months. Part
when crime in the city of Houston increased exponentially, murder

(01:18):
robbery rate, murder rates especially increased. They were killing each other,
the gang members. And let me preface this by saying
that we did have a large contingency of truly people
that were put out from the storm, that were the
people on a law biding citizenry. But there was deeply
a large portion of criminals that were embedded within this population.

(01:39):
And these criminals are unlike any others that we had
seen before. And even our gang members were offended by
what they were doing. So they truly were We had
information that they would they were getting completely taken back
by the level of just silences. Yeah, it was crazy
that they had no remorse, sympathy for life, for law

(02:01):
enforcement especially, and that was another thing. They thought that
we were like New Orleans PD. They had no respect
for the police department there, and they were quickly educated
the Houston PD did not tolerate that type of behavior.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Were you given the freedom to do what she needed
to do to do good policing at that time?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I can say dishonestly now because I'm retired, but and
the chief that we had at the time, we were
pretty much told in the beginning to stand down on
minor offenses for Katrina evacuees. But then it got to
the point where the crime was just so outrageous. Even
things that they were doing at in and around the
Reliance Stadium, criminal mischief, social disorder, crimes, public drunkakness, fighting

(02:46):
and resisting arrest and fighting with the police. So we
even had a Houston Police officer, Chris pill that was murdered.
He was off duty, but two suspects that were Katrina
evacuees were charged with capital murder and the aggravated robbery
of this AUF.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. What do you say to the left
who's trying to whitewash all this and pretend there was
no crime. Tell me what you want to say to them.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, it's outrageous behavior. I mean, you cannot ignore history,
and that's exactly what they are doing and have done.
They embrace the criminals and they revictimize the victims all
over again.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
When you do this, Doctor Greg frem And, retired HPD Captain,
you are gold, sir. Thank you for your years of service.
We appreciate you so much. You are heroes. You are
domestic military. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Brother. All right, brother, thank you,