Ray Hunt - Exec. Director Houston Police Officers Union Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Simply seeking quicker response times for some crimes, but homicide
reactions slowed. Ray Hunts, the executive director of Houston Police
Office Association, joins us, thank you for joining us today, sir, well,
thanks for having me and thank you for your service
most importantly to me personally. So here we go the
response times. What's going on here because it looks like

(00:21):
the lower level offenses are increasing in quality, you know,
response times, but it looks like the higher stuff might
be decreasing. What is going on and what's causing this?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm not sure where that's exactly coming from. Because our
Priority one calls, I'm told er slightly down, which means
a quicker response time. The priorty ones and many of
your homicides are going to result from Party one calls,
shootings in progress and things like that. So I'm not
sure where that's coming from. If it's coming from the
Houston Chronicle, I would take you with a grain of salt,
because I trust Grizzyes, good news over that.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I thank you. I think you're onto something I certainly do.
Unlike most cities, the Chronicle says, Houston has seen it
up tech and homicides nine compared to one, twenty five
and twenty twenty four. I mean, it's only four, But nonetheless,
what's going on with that? You think.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
I couldn't tell you that. I can tell you that
that is, you don't know what the gang members are
out there, what they're doing, who's out on bond, who's
in prison, et cetera. So those numbers are going to fluctuate,
obviously once to me, but you're gonna have You're gonna
have homicides in the city, no doubt about it, especially
when you have so many gang members that we have.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Another question for you, sir, is response times there some
of the excuses in here might be they're saying claiming,
actually the president of the police officers eating with you,
Sir says worstening traffic across the city. Is that true?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Does that mean?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, clearly we have more people coming in, no doubt
about that. But I can tell you that I would
expect these numbers to come down at some point as
our recruits start to increase. The pay raises that we
have now are definitely changing things, and I believe that
within the next year and a half to two years,
we may be close to fifty five hundred police less
people retire because of the pay raises and more people

(02:03):
coming here because of the pay raises.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
By the way, I got to ask you this to
the or I got to say this to U folks
coming in from all over the country, to our invaders, Sir,
they might be legal, but they're invaders.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
We don't want no more of those thinking invaders coming
in from other states.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
But we see this priory one calls decreased. I see
we declined almost twenty percent other calls, so at least
some decline and volume is could this be? This is
a wild, wild card question. I don't necessarily know if
it's true, But illegals are they afraid to call? Maybe
with all the Donald Trump stuff you know, going on.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
With them, I hope they're not not scared to call.
We definitely treat them like any other person when we're
responding to them on a call, persons on the traffic stopper,
not asking immigration status and things like that, regardless of
what the Houston chronicles claiming. But we treat every person
here as a person who's here in the city, and
we treat them with dignity and respect.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
One more question for you, and that is this supervisors
in each district. This is a retired captain from HPD
saying this supervisors each of the patrol districts. They say
they have faced pressure reducing types of crime, captains receiving
regular crime reports, and are in constant and evolving battle

(03:20):
to head off spikes. So I mean, is it good
or bad? I mean I would assume it's good when
they're putting pressure on you for the right things to
get in crimes.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I wouldn't say it's pressure. I think that supervisors out
there are making sure that the officers on the streets
are doing their job, and that is taking place on
a daily basis, So I wouldn't say that there's pressure
on folks. Clearly, you can't control where crime is going
to happen unless you just flood an area with police officers.
And as I say, we are hoping to get those
numbers increased. This chief is already putting more people onto

(03:50):
the streets than when he came here, and I would
expect with the recruits that we're going to have more
within the next year and a half or so. So
I expect those numbers to come down.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Ray Hunt, Executive Director, Houston Police Officers thank you for
what you do for us, and all the officers appreciate you, sir.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Thank Chris,