ABC13 Safety Tracker

'Very scary': Montrose resident questions neighborhood's safety after alleged aggravated robbery

Friday, May 12, 2023

Neighbor expresses concern over crime in Montrose: 'Just craziness'

One Montrose resident is questioning his neighborhood's safety after an alleged aggravated robbery involving a loved one.

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Montrose has always been known as one of Houston's more walkable communities, but one resident said he's not so sure it's still safe.

"There's fights up in these bar areas, and just craziness," the man, who wished to remain unidentified out of fear of retribution, said. "Very scary."

That man reached out to ABC13 following an incident the Houston Police Department is currently investigating that involved one of his loved ones.

HPD said it took a call in the early morning of Sunday, May 7, in the 200 block of Fairview from someone saying he was followed, attacked from behind, pistol-whipped, and robbed while walking home.

"He went to the hospital with gashes in the head," the man we interviewed said. "It was pretty bad."

A man shares his story after him and a friend were robbed at gunpoint while leaving a bar in Montrose, an area where police say crime is rising.

Police said the victim in this case initially thought he had been shot, but the blood on his head actually came from the impact of the gun hitting his skull.

ABC13 heard from more than one resident of Montrose who said it feels like their neighborhood is no longer as safe as it was in previous years.

We used the ABC13 Neighborhood Safety Tracker, which uses HPD data, to find 722 assaults over the past 12 months in the part of town that includes Montrose.

There were 783 in 2021, so progress is being made, but there were only 660 assaults in that area in 2020.

That's a trend we've seen in violent crime in Houston - acts, such as the murder rate, are trending in the right direction but still aren't at the levels they were prior to the pandemic.

Our safety tracker indicates an average of seven people were murdered each week in the previous 12 months, which is higher than the average of five people per week in 2019.

The murder rate hasn't been high in Montrose at any point, but that doesn't stop the man we spoke with from expressing concerns over crime in his neighborhood.

"It's now the PTSD and the fear and the worry," he said. "Get these people off the street."

You are encouraged to call HPD's robbery division at 713-308-0700 if you have any information on the May 7 case.

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