Houston police have arrested a suspect in a Wednesday night triple homicide, which included the death of a 6-year-old, and remain on the hunt for a man accused in a separate incident of fatally shooting the mother of his 1-year-old son and wounding the child, Mayor Sylvester Turner said Friday.
“All of us have been shaken by the senseless — and I do want to underscore ‘senseless’ — violence that has taken place in the last 48 hours,” Turner said during a news conference at City Hall. “… This week has been especially heartbreaking because some of the violence has harmed and taken the lives of innocent children.”
The suspect in the latter shooting, which took place Thursday morning at an apartment complex in west Houston, had been released on seven felony bonds and is wearing an ankle monitor, according to authorities. Turner vowed that police would find the suspect, whom he and Police Chief Trony Finner declined to identify.
The shooting coincided with the birthday of the alleged gunman’s 1-year-old son, Zeus, according to a GoFundMe page posted by family members. Authorities said Zeus survived after suffering a gunshot wound to his ankle as he was held by his mother, Layla Steele, who died after being shot four times.
Turner chastised Harris County judges who approved the suspect’s release and that of others who bonded out while facing multiple felony charges.
“That is unacceptable, and there is no real justification for anybody to be out on five, six, seven felony bonds,” Turner said.
Meanwhile, police were continuing to search for a second person they said was involved in the Wednesday triple homicide, which happened at an apartment in southwest Houston. Authorities identified the victims as Harmony Carhee, 6; Donyavia Lagway, 29; and Gregory Carhee, 35. Police arrived at the scene after receiving a call from a 10-year-old girl who also had been shot. She was taken to the hospital in stable condition, officials said.
Finner declined to identify the suspect who remained at large or the one arrested by police, though he said HPD would soon release names and photos.
“The one who’s not in custody, even though I’m not going to say your name, you know who you are, and so do we,” Finner said. “And the mayor said it: Turn yourself in.”
Since the start of the year, Houston police have recorded 240 homicides, a 40 percent increase from the same point last year, according to Finner.
Rania Mankarious, chief executive officer of Crime Stoppers Houston, said her organization had tallied more than 120 killings committed in the last 18 months by suspects who were out on multiple felony bonds at the time of the incident. That figure includes nine children and 15 victims who were attempting to flee from a domestic violence situation, she said.
“At this point, if you are truly paying attention and honestly wanting to protect citizens, you can no longer hide from the reality that the repeated releasing on bond of violent felony defendants, it is a major contributor to this spike,” Mankarious said. “This is not political. But it is time for every elected official in this city and county to acknowledge this, talk about it and work to fix it.”
The Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the local criminal defense bar, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Turner said the city has sought to address Houston’s crime wave by funding an extra police cadet class this year, adding $2.1 million in overtime to HPD’s budget and increasing the monetary rewards offered by Crime Stoppers for information related to felony crimes.
Turner also praised Harris County for approving funds to expand jury services and hire six associate judges to assist the county’s 22 criminal state district courts, moves aimed at cutting into the county’s massive backlog of cases.
The mayor added that those who know the whereabouts of people accused of “hurting and killing our children … have an obligation to” come forward to authorities.
“There should be no safe place in our city for any person that has committed a crime,” Turner said. “Let me just say, especially to those individuals who are harming our children, there should be no safe place. No single person in our city should find it acceptable for any person that has the gall to shoot or harm our children.”
Last month, Turner and Crime Stoppers tripled the reward, from $5,000 to $15,000, for information on the fatal shooting of Elsa Mikeska, a 62-year-old woman who was gunned down in a southeast Houston gym parking lot. Days later, authorities arrested a 16-year-old boy and charged him with capital murder for his alleged role in the shooting.
jasper.scherer@chron.com
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