Now this kind of reporting irks me (Houston: living, legally)

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Originally Posted by usc619

I assume it's because Kempner High School is a Sugarland school....I'm still baffled about reports of her wanting to be a "COYOTE"

Senior at Kempner High School dies during weekend trip to Mexico - 5/04/10 - Houston News - abc13.com
"A local high school student has been found murdered in Mexico, after her mother told police she went down there to learn how to transport illegal immigrants across the border."

Out of respect for the young lady, I'm going to leave that alone.

The ABC article give more information, the truth comes out. Leave it to the Chronicle to filter out anything like this... unless it was a white Conservative, then it would be palstered all over the place.

Also, the Chronicle says this about two others who were murdered:

"According to the newspaper Milenio, the other two victims were identified as Dante Ruiz Siller, 38, and Luis Angel Estrella Mondragon, both of Mexico City but described as having local ties."

That should say "both of Mexico City, but living in the US illegally."

In any case, I am sorry these people's lives were taken, and am sympathetic for their families. There is more to this story, but it will only come from Mexican investigators.

[RVD26]

Originally Posted by usc619

I assume it's because Kempner High School is a Sugarland school....I'm still baffled about reports of her wanting to be a "COYOTE"

Senior at Kempner High School dies during weekend trip to Mexico - 5/04/10 - Houston News - abc13.com
"A local high school student has been found murdered in Mexico, after her mother told police she went down there to learn how to transport illegal immigrants across the border."

Out of respect for the young lady, I'm going to leave that alone.

This high school girl was also an exotic dancer apparently.
This whole thing is a tragedy and all, but it seems like this girl had issues....

[SteveArmy]

Originally Posted by crbcrbrgv

Sugar Land teen killed in Mexico | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

You can also cut to the chase with the following information: There is no part of Synott Rd. that exists in Sugar Land. I live close to that area and know for a fact that this is Houston proper.

Why do the local media outlets do such a poor job of reporting Houston area locations properly? I think it skews our perceptions quite a bit.

dude someone who lives 'nearby' just died

[txstate]

Who cares if it was sugar land or sugar hill it shouldnt matter as long as the story goes across.

[crbcrbrgv]

Originally Posted by RVD26

This high school girl was also an exotic dancer apparently.
This whole thing is a tragedy and all, but it seems like this girl had issues....

I have some relatives that attend Kempner. My cousin through marriage who is a somewhat infamous poster on Chron.com brought up the fact that nobody at Kempner seemed all that surprised that this would happen to this particular student. Apparently, she had involvement in a lot of things that weren't very savory.

And as for all those criticizing me for being a little to sensitive about the reporting, perhaps you are right.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Originally Posted by RVD26

This high school girl was also an exotic dancer apparently.
This whole thing is a tragedy and all, but it seems like this girl had issues....

Exotic? As in feathered dress, big hair, fruit basket on her head, snakeskin dress? Or what?

They should call it what it is.

[Oildog]

There are many holes in the story. I think the mom may some some explaining to do. How many parents let their 18 yr old daughter drive alone to Mexico...to learn about human smuggling...or go there with two much older adults?

[lame_excuse]

Originally Posted by HookTheBrotherUp

That should say "both of Mexico City, but living in the US illegally."

Why? Is it true?

[bamba_boy]

Good characterization. I live in SW Houston, well within the city limits maybe 10-12 blocks from the Mo. City limit. However, it is almost rural. There is a working livestock ranch to the immediate west of my subdivision used for 4H clubs of Houston ISD. There are large empty tracts that are for sale and have been for sale for at least 20 years of 10s to several hundred acres to the south and north that are heavily wooded. Even within our subdivision there is a centrally-located lake with ducks, turtles, bass, and carp and several large birds I can't identify. It's almost too rural to call suburban let alone urban even though technically it's inside the Houston city limits.

I love it this way, it's like living in a countryside retirement community yet is 20 minutes from a gigantic downtown, 10 minutes from Uptown/galleria )(more "A" office space than Denver), and 15 minutes to the Medical Center. How many cities in America have buculic low stress areas so close to major entertainment/employment and at a very reasonable cost (you can get a 2500 sq house for $120-$150k if it isn't new).

I have a theory how this came about. The area (Lakes of Fondren and Fondren SW Northfield) was a very upscale trendy area in the 70s and up until the mid-80's oil industry collapse. The building of both yuppie apartments and house subdivisions hadn't quite filled in the rural area between SW Houston (Westbury, Meyerland, Willowbend, etc) and Sugar Land when unemployment spiked, housing prices collapsed, and all the boom workers in energy and real estate/housing/loan industry fled town, along with the collapsing savings & loan industry during that fiasco. The emptied apartments were leased out then with almost no screening to a combination of refugees from very poor housing (little shotgun shacks) in the barrios and wards of inner loop houston and illegal immigrants coming north from Mexico. The biggest problem were gangbangers of all pursuasions who couldn't get leases anywhere else.

As a result, a few bad apartment complexes with the above problems essentially shut off the further development (admittedly with a few exceptions) in outer SW Houston and it leapfrogged over to beyond SugarLand in Ft Bend country with a lot of greenspace still existing in-between. For instance, if you look in google earth there is more empty woods and fields inside the SW corner of Beltway 8 in Houston than there is between SugarLand, Richmond, and Rosenberg.

Originally Posted by jfre81

Well, once you go out that far, all that started out as suburbs and was pretty much open country until 50-60 years ago or even more recently. There really isn't a great deal of history out there. Not that it was demolished to make new, but it simply wasn't there not all that long ago. It was pastures and rice fields. Entirely different paradigm there, but even there you have some actual names. You have Meyerland, Westbury, Willowbend, Oak Forest to name a few. Once again we're confusing "in the city limits" with "in an urban environment" which a lot of people around here do.

Here's the way I look at it, if nobody else does. You've got the core of Houston, inside 610, maybe a few spots just outside. We're talking 110-120 square miles, a comparable area to the city of Philadelphia. That's more equivalent to the city proper in most other metro areas and is generally the most urbanized here. Then most everything past that is suburban in nature, inside the city limits or not. If Houston annexed an empty field, it doesn't make it any more urban than it was before. It's still an empty field. The same would go for any development. Kingwood didn't gain any urban characteristics from being annexed by Houston 14 years ago. The only difference is it gets counted into the city's land area and its residents into the total city population count. That, and they pay taxes to the city now, which is why any of these places were annexed in the first place. You can call Kingwood "northeast Houston" and technically be right though.

Concerning news people and how they describe things, remember a lot of them are transplants from elsewhere and a good deal of their audience are transplants from elsewhere too. Maybe keeping things broad and general helps simplify it for them, but it also leads to a lot of sweeping generalizations, like the idea that all of the southwest side is a giant crime scene.

[RPEP09]

I saw the video on milenio about the crash.. you know how they don't censor much in mexico.. regardless of what the girl did it was a bad way to go..