What happened? (car, office, pay)

[Zhang Fei]

Originally Posted by jluke65780

Why would we need 80 cops per sq. mile. It's like that because NYC is a much dense and crowded city.

A criminal generally has to look for an escape route before he does what he does for a living. Having more cops per square mile means - assuming that the cops do a zone defense - that the amount of time he has to get away before a cop gets to him is much shorter. This helps to deter crime. High population density also works against the criminal because there are more pairs of eyes on him as he gets in and out of the crime scene - witnesses that could end up fingering him in court.

New York City had a period of high crime in spite of the huge advantage it had in cops per square mile because, for a time, officers were told not to go after petty criminals - including street-level drug dealers. What they failed to account for was that petty criminals tended to go back and forth. After they committed a big crime, they'd revert to petty crime until the heat blew over. Giuliani brought in a policy of zero tolerance. Cops were assigned to ambush turnstile jumpers. It turned out that a significant number of fare evaders were serious felons with warrants outstanding.

[Zhang Fei]

Originally Posted by jluke65780

Why are ya'll freaking out over these personal crimes???

Should we really fear for our lives because people committed suicide and another man killed his family?? Stop exaggerating.

I'd have to agree. This (http://www.star-telegram.com/448/story/1926358.html - broken link) is the kind of incident that's scary:

A Houston man described by authorities as the leader of a gang responsible for at least four murders and dozens of robberies lost an appeal Wednesday of his death sentence for the slayings of a young couple during a carjacking.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the appeal of Dexter Darnell Johnson, condemned for the June 2006 shooting deaths of Maria Aparece, 23, of Sugar Land, and her 17-year-old boyfriend Huy Ngo, of Houston.

Aparece was from the Philippines and a pre-nursing student. Ngo, who was Vietnamese, had moved to Houston with his family from France.

Johnson, 21, at the time of his arrest was an 18-year-old ninth-grade dropout.

Testimony at Johnson's trial showed the couple was talking in Aparece's car outside Ngo's Houston home when they were confronted by Johnson and a companion, both of them armed.

The victims were thrown in the backseat and driven away, forced to surrender money, credit cards and ATM passwords. Then Aparece was raped before both she and Ngo were marched into a wooded area and fatally shot in the head. Their bodies were found about a week later.

Her car and cars belonging to two other carjacking victims were found outside an apartment in suburban Humble where Johnson was living.

It's fortunate that it doesn't happen all that often.

[SteveArmy]

Originally Posted by MrSykes

And a marginally third-rate one to boot.

ya. i still havent figured out how chris rock and katt william do it so well

[XodoX]

16 people on one day is not really what I call a normal day
I think it is a reason to be concerned. That's for sure.

[jfre81]

We get so alarmed over shootings and such but we hardly bat an eye when a bunch of people die on the roads.

I've said it many times and I'll say it again - the most dangerous place in this city is the inside of your own car.

A little further reading. (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=352982 - broken link)

I'm not trying to be anti-automobile here but people get really worked up over crime when they're less likely to be hurt in an act of crime than they are driving to work. And then there are the people who insist public transit is unsafe.

[MrSykes]

^You beat me to it. Auto fatalities are a Houston area epidemic. Unconnected spurts of gun violence are nothing in comparison to the constant battle zone that is the Houston road. That Houstonians generally fail to appreciate the severity of this epidemic is even more frightening.

[SteveArmy]

yup not only distractions cause "commute related deaths" but pretty sure its relative to the mileage you drive everyday, the number of times youre late for something and the number of times you have to stop to get gas

[pach84]

Originally Posted by SteveArmy

yup not only distractions cause "commute related deaths" but pretty sure its relative to the mileage you drive everyday, the number of times youre late for something and the number of times you have to stop to get gas

I don't know. There are a lot of angry drivers here, regardless of gridlock. I get the "?" around my car on a daily basis w/o any cars around. I drive around 75 mph.

[CoderGeek]

Originally Posted by MrSykes

...That Houstonians generally fail to appreciate the severity of this epidemic is even more frightening.

Tolerable risk. Your tolerance for the multitudinous deaths on Houston-area highways varies from mine and many others.

[MrSykes]

...Tolerable only insofar as you have yet to be directly affected by the epidemic.