Houston's top 4 mayoral candidates under the microscope for their stances on crime
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- With Election Day just a week away, Houston's four leading mayoral candidates took the stage in an ABC13 debate addressing voters, and crime was one of the main topics.
Although current Mayor Sylvester Turner has touted his One Safe Houston crime initiative for causing crime to trend downward, many voters aren't feeling it and want the next administration to prioritize crime reduction.
About eight in 10 Houston residents say it is very important for the next mayor to do something to reduce crime, according to the Kinder Institute. One-third of residents reported feeling their neighborhood wasn't a safe place to live.
As voters voice safety concerns, the Houston Police Department continues to face issues putting more officers on the streets, unable to keep up with retirements.
ABC13 caught up with HPD Chief Troy Finner at a cadet graduation on Tuesday.
"Today, it was 64 (officers) that graduated," Finner said. "We will continue, because of the support from the mayor and city council, we are doing five academy classes a year."
Still, the department is roughly 1,500 to 2,000 officers short, according to Finner.
During ABC13's mayoral debate, candidates offered up their solutions to reducing crime and making up for the retention right.
SEE MORE: 4 frontrunning candidates vying for Houston mayor finish final debate a week before Election Day
The candidates participating in Monday's debate were Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, State Senator John Whitmire, former METRO chair Gilbert Garcia, and former Houston City Council member Jack Christie.
"Crime is one of the top priorities to solve, and I have suggested for eight years to hire more police," Christie said. "We have a great police force and police chief, but they are spread so thin. It's a miracle the mayor's focus was to go to the target areas of high crime, and it's working. It's working well, but it would work better if we had 500 more police, but you can't get 500 more police until you get a balanced budget."
"First of all, Houston, I am not going to mislead you ever," Garcia said. "It's going to be very difficult to hire a bunch of police officers, despite some of the candidates here that will talk about hiring 100 here, 500 here. One of the things we need to do right here is to make a difference. First and foremost, we have too many police officers who are doing civilian work. It is much faster, easier, and more efficient to hire more civilian workers to do the civilian work to then free up more police officers. That's number one. Number two, I'd like to bring back more community policing."
"My first effort would be not to cut over time," Jackson Lee said. "We help that with the federal funds. We can still do that with prioritization to make sure we boost the officers on the streets, that we go to high-risk, high-crime areas, we target that and clean that up. Let the neighborhood know we have responded to the crime that is undermining your safety. We make sure we overhaul unnecessary city expenses, so we have the funds as we build up our revenue and make sure we have violence interruption programs. I have been at the forefront of that."
State Sen. Whitmire offered up the most controversial solution to bring in state troopers to help Houston police.
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"Their resources would be so valuable," Whitmire said. "Their helicopters, their anti-gang task force, their forensics. It's taken a year to get a ballistic test done at HPD crime lab. We need to look for resources from other departments. We have 85 law enforcement agencies in Harris County. We need collaboration. The DPS would assist HPD in traffic enforcement, freeing up HPD to go into our community."
"I give them credit for the investigatory skills," Jackson Lee said. "They'll be used by that but not patrolling our neighborhoods."
"I can't think of a worse idea than to bring DPS officers in to militarize our city," Garcia said.
WATCH THE FULL DEBATE:
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