Houston area flu cases spike!

THE CHRON: If you've been putting off your annual flu shot, don't delay any longer: Texas is already being hit hard this flu season.

Houston-area hospitals have seen a spike in the number of emergency room visits for flu-like symptoms, said Porfirio Villarreal, spokesman for the Houston Department of Health and Human Services. During the week of Nov. 18, about 1,580 visits to emergency rooms were attributed to flu-like illnesses, compared with just 249 visits during the same week last year, Villarreal said.

Influenza is a serious disease that can lead to hospitalization or even death, the CDC says.

Every flu season is different, and even healthy people can get very sick from the disease and spread it to others. From 1976 to 2007, estimates of U.S. deaths each year due to flu ranged from 3,000 to 49,000.

"Flu is predictably unpredictable," said Dr. Gail Demmler-Harrison, pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Texas Children's Hospital and pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine. "There's no cause for alarm but cause for action. People should get themselves vaccinated so it doesn't get any worse."

National Influenza Vaccination Week, a campaign established in 2005 to counter the notion that December is too late to get a vaccination, ends Saturday. Once a vaccine is administered, it takes about two weeks to develop immunity.

Although the influenza season usually peaks in February, 48 states and Puerto Rico have reported cases, with rates rising quickly nationwide, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week.

Along with Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee are also reporting high levels of activity.

In Houston, Texas Children's Hospital has seen an early start to the season with 123 confirmed cases of Type A influenza and 32 cases of Type B, compared with just two Type A cases in the same span last year, Demmler-Harrison said.

Everyone who is at least 6 months old should get a flu vaccination, but the CDC says it's especially important for these groups:

» People at high risk of developing serious complications like pneumonia if they get the flu, including those with medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes and chronic lung disease.

» Pregnant women.

» People 65 years and older.

» People who live with or care for others who are at high risk of developing serious complications.

Man arrested in Friendswood on child porn and drug charges

by Christopher Smith Gonzalez/ The Daily News

FRIENDSWOOD — A Houston man was arrested at a Friendswood grocery store and charged with possession of child pornography as well as methamphetamine, synthetic marijuana and Valium.

Officers from Galveston County Precinct 8, Texas Department of Public Safety and Friendswood Police Department served a Galveston County arrest warrant to 27-year-old Jesse Andrew Burton in the parking lot of the Kroger store on North Friendswood Drive.

The Friendswood department said police were tipped off that Burton was in North Galveston County and possibly working for United Parcel Service. Police surveillance units spotted a United Parcel Service truck in the grocery store parking lot as well as a man matching Burton’s description, the Friendswood police department said

Traffic violator turned into drug informant for Friendswood police

FRIENDSWOOD, TX (KTRK) -- It's the story of a way out of a traffic ticket that seems hard to believe. A single mom stopped by Friendswood police for a bad lane change ends up changing into a confidential drug informant.

It was dinner time and this single mom from Friendswood wanted to pick up some KFC. She didn't signal a lane change and soon was pulled over.

"This is the first time I've been pulled over and the first time I've dealt with anything like this in my life," the woman said.

The traffic ticket would've cost a couple hundred bucks, at the most, to get out of. The reason we're telling her story is because her traffic ticket turned into a secret undercover deal to buy drugs for the Friendswood police.

"I was agreeing to do three buys for him to get out of my insurance and inspection citations," she said.

"You were agreeing to become a drug snitch?" we asked.

"Yes," she said.

During the traffic stop, Friendswood police officers found a brand new glass pipe in her car with a price tag attached and they returned it to her. They also found a bottle of her prescription medication Suboxone, an anti-addiction medication. She was prescribed Suboxone after getting off Vicodin for dental pain.

After the stop, officers took the woman to a Friendswood police station, put her in a holding cell and strip searched her.

"She made me bend over, she looked everywhere, she didn't find anything," the woman said.

It'd been four hours since she left her son without adequate supervision while she went to get dinner. She was only supposed to be gone 15 minutes.

"I actually begged and begged and begged and begged for them to let me call my mom to go get my son," the woman said.

Police offered her a deal.

"I had two choices, that they were going to either arrest me, or I could agree to do some controlled buys for him," the woman said.

From single mom without a stain on her record to drug snitch in just a few hours. The next day she made that undercover buy alone, nervous, scared for her safety, and, she says, without any way to communicate with a police officer outside in case something went bad.

"I was scared for my safety," the woman said.

She got $100 worth of meth, turned it in to cops and then called a lawyer to get her out of a deal she now knows she never should have made in the first place.

But when the lawyer started pushing to get that woman out of the undercover deal, the Friendswood Police Department pushed back, essentially threatening to give her name to the drug dealer.

"He would make sure to get an affidavit and the warrant to arrest the girl. He would try to bust her and he would make sure to tell her that I was the one who ratted her out," the woman said.

It's hard to believe, but a text message from the Friendswood detective says it would be up to the Brazoria County DA if they would have to name their source. He said it on the phone with the woman's defense attorney as well. The lawyer recorded that call and gave it to us.

"We can go ahead and just file a warrant, based on the one controlled buy that she did and name her in the warrant," said Friendswood Police Chief Bob Wieners on the recording.

Police officers haven't yet and now say they won't. But they do say this is a common practice in Friendswood, turning traffic tickets into drug informant deals.

"We work plenty of Class C contracts," Wieners said.

They do about one a month, the chief told us on the phone, deals his city prosecutor knows nothing about. Chief Weiners confirmed the deal he made with this woman but said we don't know the whole story.

"But please don't think that you telling me you have a side of the story without divulging any of it is somehow clearing the air," we told Weiners.

Since he wouldn't share it with us, we reached out to the Friendswood city manager and the city attorney, asking them to share any facts we should know before reporting the woman's concern. They both said this is an ongoing police investigation matter and they weren't going to tell us, or you, anything about how or why their police department turned a ticket into a trip into the underworld.

"I feel like because they knew I had so much to lose that I'd want to agree to it. I just thought that's why they were doing it," the woman said.

We've already heard from another driver who was offered a similar deal just weeks ago in Friendswood. When we checked with area prosecutors and a few other law enforcement agencies, this apparently is not a widespread practice.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Pearland Walmart robbers sought

PEARLAND, TX (KTRK) -- Pearland police are still looking for a man who robbed a Walmart.

Officers responded to an armed robbery at the Walmart on Main near FM 518 last night. The officers spotted a vehicle matching the description of one used in the robbery and started chasing it.

There were two men in the car. They ditched it and ran into an apartment complex on Broadway.

One of them has been caught. Police are still looking for the second man.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Houston woman caught stealing from purses in Friendswood nursing home.

FRIENDSWOOD, Texas—A Houston woman was caught August 9 going through an administrator’s purse at a nursing home in Friendswood. Treatha Robinson Johnson, 45, was arrested and charged with theft.

Friendswood police said Robinson was reported to have walked into an open office at the Heritage Nursing Home, located at 213 E. Heritage Dr., at about 9:40 a.m.

The administrator walked into the office and found Robinson going through the purse and holding a small make-up case behind the desk. Inside the make-up case was $250 worth of prescription medications and other items.

Robinson told the staff that she was at the facility to get information about the home for her mother.

While at the scene, officers discovered that Johnson had five outstanding warrants. There were four counts of credit card abuse from Montgomery County, each with a $1,500 bond and one count of credit card abuse from Galveston, with an $80,000 bond. Her bond was set at $1,000 for the theft.

This story comes to us from our media partner, Clear Lake Today. Click here to read more…

Vandals destroy cancer survivor flock of flamingos

FRIENDSWOOD, Texas—When Carla Stinson, of Friendswood, beat breast cancer a few years ago, she got back on her feet and started walking.

She finished two Susan G Komen walks. Each one was 60 miles long, and required Stinson to raise more than $2,000 to participate.

To raise money, she spent hundreds of dollars on nearly 50 flamingos. She placed them in her friends’ yards in a fundraising effort known as "flocking."

“The birds get thrown in the back of my SUV and I drive to the next house, sneak around before the sun comes up and put the birds in a yard,” she said. “It’s something that takes quite a bit of time and effort.”

Over the years, the flamingos helped her raise thousands of dollars.

But now, they have broken beaks and bent legs. During a recent flocking, a vandal tore them up.

“I’d say that 80 percent of them were just destroyed,” Stinson said. “Idle hands, idle minds.”

She now worries she may be short on funds to walk later this year.

She also worries she will lose training time as she fixes her flock.

And yet, it is still far from the most disheartening part.

“The people that suffer are the folks that don’t get the benefit of the money being raised,” she said.

It is money that Stinson may now have to find some other way

Cops nab Friendswood burglars

FRIENDSWOOD, Texas

KHOU: Friendswood Police have made four more arrests this week of burglars in the area.

Friday, July 27 at 6 p.m., Dontae Mason, 35, of Houston, and Kevin Jerod Kent, 28, of Miami, Florida, were charged with Burglary of a Motor Vehicle and Theft-Possession of Stolen Property.

Officers were dispatched to Kandiland Day Care Center, located at 1504 Winding Way, where a burglary of a motor vehicle was occurring. The vehicle’s owner walked outside and saw two feet sticking out her driver’s side window. She ran inside, called 9-1-1, and described the suspect’s vehicle as a silver car with out-of-state license plates.

An officer caught up to the vehicle, with Florida license plates, just as it got outside the city limits on El Dorado at Signal Hill. When another police unit caught up, the officers conducted a felony stop on the vehicle in the 2200 block of Bay Area Blvd.

Kevin Jerod Kent was identified as the driver. Kent told police that his passenger, who identified himself as Corey Mason, jumped into his car, bleeding, after stealing a purse. Kent also told police that Mason threw a stolen phone out of the car. A wrecker driver found the phone in the middle of El Dorado Blvd. Later, officers found a GPS stolen from a vehicle burglary in Manvel, as well as, other stolen property from a League City burglary.

>> This story comes to us from our media partner Clear Lake Today.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

Historic rainfall hits Houston & vicinity

CBS/AP) HOUSTON - Historic rainfall levels that drenched the Houston area this week flooded dozens of homes and caused widespread street flooding, but the rain also is likely to result in the end of drought conditions in Southeast Texas, officials said Friday.

Officials estimated that fewer than 100 homes were flooded after Cypress Creek, located in the northwest part of the Houston area, rose above its banks after getting about 14 inches of rain over the past couple of days, said Francisco Sanchez, a spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

County officials were still trying to reach flooded neighborhoods oan Friday to better assess the damage, but initial reports had homes affected anywhere from a few inches to a couple of feet of water, Sanchez said.

"Some areas along Cypress Creek got more rain in the last 24 hours than in Hurricane Ike (in 2008) or from major flooding in 1998," Sanchez said.

CBS Affiliate KHOU reports it will be mostly dry Saturday morning, but there is a 60-percent chance of rain beginning in the afternoon.

A flood warning is in effect until 8:50 a.m. Sunday for northwest Harris County and Montgomery County. A flood warning is in effect until 10 Sunday night for the Spring Creek area of Harris County.

In northwest Harris County, a good portion of the subdivision called the Enchanted Valley Estates was only accessible by boat. Homeowners could be seen using canoes, pontoon boats and even a jet ski to navigate around the area.

Firefighters rescued several families from the Norchester subdivision near Cypress Creek Friday when two to three feet of water seeped into their homes overnight.

Several people also had to be rescued early Friday morning after driving into high water.

Gary Whitaker Jr., who lives in one of the areas affected by Cypress Creek, said street flooding in his neighborhood had started to recede on Friday but a nearby subdivision still had streets that were impassable. Water from the creek was flowing "like a waterfall" across one street and into a golf course, he said.

"Quite a few people in our subdivision couldn't go to work today. They couldn't get out (due to flooded streets). It was pretty risky," he said.

Whitaker, 36, who lives in Cypress, an unincorporated area in northwest Harris County, said there were no reports of flooded homes in his neighborhood.

The American Red Cross in Houston sent out workers Friday to affected neighborhoods to assess the flooded homes, said spokesman Cameron Ballantyne. The agency had not opened any shelters.

In Montgomery County, located just north of Harris County, officials reported seven to eight flooded homes.

A shelter had been opened in Montgomery County at Living Stones Church in Magnolia, but church secretary Linda Arnold said no residents had used the facility.

Victor Murphy, a climate expert with the National Weather Service, said one rain gauge on the border of Harris and Waller counties recorded 10.3 inches of rain in a 10 hour period.

Murphy said that amount of precipitation within that short period of time suggests that area experienced a "100-year rainfall event," which caused Cypress Creek to overflow.

Other areas in Southeast Texas also got large amounts of rain, including just west of Bay City in Matagorda County, which received about 18 inches this past week.

"Rainfall in the entire (Southeast Texas) area this week was in the 8 to 10 inch category," he said. "The average weekly rainfall for this time of year is about 1 inch or so."

While the current U.S. Drought Monitor shows some parts of Southeast Texas as being abnormally dry, that does not include this week's rainfall totals.

"When the next U.S. Drought Monitor comes out Thursday, there will not be any drought in Southeast Texas," Murphy said. Most of the rest of the state was expected to remain in drought conditions.

Even if Southeast Texas only experiences average rainfall or dry weather the rest of the summer, drought conditions should be kept at bay until at least the fall, Murphy said.

Sanchez said officials were hopeful Cypress Creek, which was still rising Friday, would eventually recede if the area was not inundated with more rain. Water levels at two other nearby creeks which had also flowed out of their banks, had started to fall.

Rain was forecast for this weekend but the chances of showers were expected to be lower than earlier this week.

Ten arrested for selling bath salts in Friendswood

FRIENDSWOOD, TX (KTRK) -- Ten people have been arrested and are accused of selling bath salts at five businesses around the Friendswood area.

Friendswood police say the month-long undercover operation also resulted in the seizure of tens of thousands of dollars of suspected contraband and $28,100 in cash.

 They say they received information that illegal products were being sold from three smoke shops in Houston, one in Webster and one in unincorporated Harris County.

Those arrested in Thursday's raid were charged with felony possession of a controlled substance, which is the same penalty for cocaine possession. The arrestees were booked into the Friendswood City Jail on Thursday afternoon and were released on bond by Friday morning.

Bath salts, a synthetic drug banned by Texas law, have been blamed for erratic behavior and deaths nationwide. Friendswood police say they have experienced several incidents involving bath salts in the last three months where individuals had to be restrained and transported to medical facilities.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

District attorney says Terrebonne sheriff (now Friendswood resident) did not perform criminal act .

Louisiana prosecutors said they will look into the case of a suspected drunken driver who was not arrested by a Terrebonne sheriff's deputy last month.

Meanwhile, the district attorney said he does not believe the sheriff did anything wrong criminally by calling the deputy and urging him to let the driver go.

Toby Guillory, 26, a Terrebonne native who now lives in Friendswood, Texas, was seen driving the wrong way down Bayou Dularge Road when he was pulled over by deputy Paul Thibodeaux the morning of April 8. Guillory admitted he was drunk, a police report says, and Thibodeaux was going to book him into the Terrebonne Parish jail on a DWI and careless operation charge.

However, a phone call from Sheriff Vernon Bourgeois changed the course of action. According to recordings from the Sheriff's Office's radio room, Thibodeaux explains the situation to Bourgeois, who in turn says he would appreciate it if the deputy would “cut him a break.”

Guillory, the husband of the granddaughter of Houma attorney Jake Walker, was then let go, the report says.

Bourgeois has said he did not explicitly tell the deputy to let Guillory go. He also said he did not know Walker's law firm contributed money to his 2007 election campaign.

Rafael Goyeneche III, president of the New Orleans-based Metropolitan Crime Commission, has said Bourgeois's actions border on criminal behavior.

However, District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr. said he doesn't think, at least criminally, there is much to investigate.

The real story of the Sugarland Express

This Week in Texas Historyby BARTEE HAILE

As the sun came up on May 2, 1969, a young couple got the drop on the highway patrolman who answered their phony plea for help at an isolated ranch in southeast Texas.

Robert “Bobby” Dent, 22, was passing through Port Arthur at 2 a.m. with his wife of one year, Ila Fae Dent, 21, when flashing red lights suddenly appeared in his rearview mirror. The ex-convict, out of the joint just two weeks, did not know what the lawmen wanted, but he was not about to hang around and find out.

Roaring out of town on state highway 73, the Dents’ car broke down near Anahuac. With the police only seconds behind them, the two eluded capture by dashing into the woods that bordered the blacktop.

Bobby and Ila Fae made their way north in the darkness to a ranch house between the tiny Jefferson County communities of Fannett and Nome. In dire need of a four-wheel getaway, Bobby hit upon the ironic idea of calling the cops for a ride.

The dispatcher gave directions to Kenneth Krone, 27, and told the DPS trooper two hitchhikers that claimed to have been beaten and robbed would be waiting for him. It was six o’clock in the morning, when Krone walked into the kitchen of the ranch house and found Bobby and Ila Fae holding handguns pointed right at him.

Bobby disarmed the stunned state trooper, making his better half a present of Krone’s .357 Magnum, and forced him to try on his own handcuffs for size. Marched at gunpoint to his patrol car, Krone did as he was told and slipped behind the wheel. Bobby sat next him in the front seat with the cocked Magnum in his ribs, while Ila Fae stuck the trooper’s shotgun in his ear from the back seat.

Obeying Bobby’s terse instructions to “drive,” it did not take Krone long to realize his captors had no plan nor even a destination. To make matters worse, they clearly had not counted on the attention a state trooper under such obvious duress would attract on the heavily traveled highway to Houston.

When the commandeered cruiser reached Texas’ largest city, a lengthening line of law enforcement was in close but restrained pursuit. The caravan, which eventually numbered more than a hundred vehicles, included additional highway patrol, local police, deputy sheriffs from several counties, news media vans and an ambulance.

By the time the “chase” turned north toward Conroe, DPS captain Jerry Miller was in charge and in constant two-way radio communication with the fleeing fugitives. As Miller saw it, his job was to calm Bobby Dent down and keep him from flying off the handle.

“I told him what you are doing is foolish,” Capt. Miller later recounted. He advised Bobby to “pull over and stop” only to be told “I’m not going back to the penitentiary.”

On another occasion, Miller suggested that Bobby at least let his wife out of the car, but the former inmate could not bear the thought of being separated again from Ila Fae. “She doesn’t want to come back there with you!” was his heated response.

In attempt to earn the Dents’ trust, Miller allowed them on two occasions to stop for gas. True to his word, he kept the army of pursuers at a distance while the three stars of the real-life drama filled their tank, went to the restroom and bought snacks and drinks.

Not long after the second time-out, Bobby offered to release his hostage if Miller would let him visit his two stepchildren, Ila Fae’s from a previous marriage, at their grandparents’ place near Bryan. Miller agreed to the deal and sealed it with a promise to give the couple a 15-minute head-start after the reunion.

Bobby Dent was not only a third-rate petty criminal, who had done hard time for vandalizing vending machines, he also was incredibly gullible.

It was nearly noon, when the Dents pulled up to the white frame house in Wheelock. As per Miller’s orders, the caravan parked a mile down the dirt road.

The three climbed the front steps with Patrolman Krone in the lead, Bobby behind him with the shotgun and Ila Fae bringing up the rear with the .357 Magnum.

As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Krone could make out his rescuers. He stepped to the side and dropped to the floor just as Sheriff Sonny Elliott of Robertson County and FBI agent Bob Wiatt opened fire.

The shotgun blast and pistol rounds propelled Bobby Dent right back out the door and onto the steps. “Oh, my God, you’ve killed him!” screamed Ila Fae dropping her pistol to the ground, and she was right.

For her part, Ila Fae Dent was given five years but served only five months. She died of natural causes in 1992 while working at a motel in Livingston.

“The Sugarland Express” hit movie theaters in 1974. Despite a cast with two Academy Award winners (Goldie Hawn as Ila Fae and Ben Johnson as Capt. Miller), the first feature film by 30-year-old Steven Spielberg laid an egg at the box office.

It might have helped ticket sales if the script had stayed true to the real story. Case in point: Ila Fae did not bust Bobby out of prison. But to his credit Spielberg did show a lot of recognizable Texas countryside during the marathon chase scenes.

Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549 or haile@pdq.net.

Read more at the Hays Free Presshttp://haysfreepress.com/2012/05/09/the-real-story-behind-the-sugarland-express/#ixzz1uTfXEMIj