A La Marque police officer shot and killed a man Wednesday night, the department confirmed.
Officials have not said what led to the shooting, but a press conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. today at which the La Marque Police Department is expected to release more details on this shooting.
The shooting happened at 11:15 p.m. in the 1000 block of Pirtle Street.
Initial reports claim the unidentified 22-year-old man who was killed had been sitting in a car. He then got out of the car and started to run across the street.
That’s when the officer opened fire.
First responders were called to the scene and the man was taken to a nearby hospital where he died.
It’s still not clear what led to the shooting and police have not said if the man had any sort of weapon on him.
After the shooting, neighbors started to gather. Officers from Texas City, Santa Fe, and Galveston arrived to help de-escalate the situation.
The officer involved, who has yet to be identified, is now on administrative leave while an internal investigation is underway.
The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s office are conducting independent investigations as well.
Third Ward business owners and residents are seeing an increase in the number of Houston police officers patrolling their area.
In October, Mayor Sylvester Turner and HPD Chief Art Acevedo announced that $4.1 million, given to the city as part of the CARES Act, will go toward increasing patrols in crime “hot spots”.
The money was specifically distributed to fund overtime hours to put 110 additional officers in six areas of the city, including Westside, South Gessner, North Belt, Southeast, South Central and Midwest.
Acevedo said since the increase in patrols, violent crime is trending down versus earlier in the year.
“It is having a positive impact, but the problem is sustainability,” Acevedo said. “How do we sustain it in the world where you still have the same number of officers you had 20 years ago in a city that has grown by 500,000?”
Kaffeine Coffee is a local coffee shop in Third Ward, which falls within the South Central part of the city. Owner Orgena Keener has been broken into seven times over the years since she’s been open.
“We’ve always seen cruisers, but they are actually stopping by, coming in-person and checking on us and that is something we have always wanted [them] to do, especially in the later hours of the evening,” Keener said.
Keener hosted an event called “Coffee with a Cop” so people in the community could form relationships with the officers.
“Just to physically come in and say to the business owner, ‘How’s your day? How’s everything going for you? We’re here for you,’ means a lot to us,” Keener said.
Across the street from her cafe, Bryce Redhead, the owner of Red’s Juice Joint and Smoothie Bar, said he has seen a decrease in the number of car break-ins. He attributes it to the visibility of Houston police in the area keeping criminals away.
“It would probably keep people away because they don’t want their car broken into while they’re getting something at the bar,” Redhead said.
However, crime has not stopped. On Tuesday night, the Family Dollar on Almeda and Southmore was robbed at gunpoint, according to HPD.
Simon Gentry and his wife narrowly missed the three suspects running down the sidewalk past their home.
“We had been at home for maybe three of four minutes and police were knocking on our door asking if our cameras were real or not,” Gentry said.
He was impressed by their timely response and said officers were canvassing the area within seven minutes of the robbery. The increased patrols funded by the CARES Act will end at the end of the year.
She said since her most recent break-in, in mid-October, officers have been stopping by to check-in.
Gov. Abbott Wednesday directed the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to provide support to the Houston Police Department (HPD) in their efforts to address an alarming rise in road rage-related shootings in the city of Houston. DPS will deploy marked and unmarked patrol units to patrol hot spots identified by HPD.
Gov. Abbott directed DPS to deploy multiple resources to support HPD and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Violent Crime Prevention operations, including DPS special agents and state troopers to conduct gang and drug investigative operations and a team of DPS intelligence analysts. DPS will also provide one helicopter and two patrol planes to provide direct air support.
“The State of Texas is working closely with HPD to provide the necessary resources that will effectively combat violence in the Houston community,” said Gov. Abbott. “The support that DPS is providing to HPD will protect Houstonians and crackdown on illegal and violent activity, including road rage-related shootings, within the city.”
Starship prototype Serial Number 8, or SN8, will aim to fly as high as 12.5 kilometers, or about 41,000 feet. That’s significantly higher than the pair of 500-foot flight tests that SpaceX completed with prototypes SN5 and SN6 earlier this year.
The attempt comes a day after SpaceX nearly launched the rocket but was stopped short by a last-second engine issue. The company has since reset for another attempt.
Notably, the goal of the SN8 flight is not necessarily to reach the maximum altitude, but rather to test several key parts of the Starship system.
“This suborbital flight is designed to test a number of objectives, from how the vehicle’s three Raptor engines perform to the overall aerodynamic entry capabilities of the vehicle (including its body flaps) to how the vehicle manages the propellant transition. SN8 will also attempt to perform a landing flip maneuver, which would be a first for a vehicle of this size,” SpaceX said in a statement on its website.
Given the multiple development milestones the company is undertaking with the SN8 flight, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave the rocket low odds of complete success on the first try.
“Lot of things need to go right, so maybe 1/3 chance,” Musk said.
Starship SN8 is built of stainless steel, with the prototypes representing the early versions of the rocket that Musk unveiled last year. The company is developing Starship with the goal of launching cargo and as many as 100 people at a time on missions to the Moon and Mars.
While SpaceX’s fleet of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are partially reusable, Musk’s goal is to make Starship fully reusable — envisioning a rocket that is more akin to a commercial airplane, with short turnaround times between flights where the only major cost is fuel.
The company is building and testing the Starship prototypes at its growing facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The facility on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 miles east of the Texas city of Brownsville on the Mexico border.
Starship prototype rocket SN8 stands on the launchpad at SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas on Nov. 10, 2020.
SpaceX
SpaceX also noted that it has completed over 16,000 seconds – or nearly four and a half cumulative hours – of tests running its Raptor series of engines, which are built to power Starship.
Three of SpaceX’s Raptor engines at the base of its Starship rocket.
Musk has pivoted the company’s attention to Starship ever since SpaceX in May successfully launched its first astronaut mission. He’s deemed Starship the company’s top priority, declaring in an email obtained by CNBC earlier this year that the development program must accelerate “dramatically and immediately.”
Last year Musk said that Starship could potentially fly people in 2020, but he’s since acknowledged that the rocket still has many milestones, including “hundreds of missions,” to go before that happens.
SpaceX expects Starship’s first orbital flight test won’t come until next year.
Governor Greg Abbott today directed the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to provide support to the Houston Police Department (HPD) in their efforts to address an alarming rise in road rage-related shootings in the city of Houston. DPS will deploy marked and unmarked patrol units to patrol hot spots identified by HPD.
Furthermore, Governor Abbott directed DPS to deploy multiple resources to support HPD and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Violent Crime Prevention operations, including DPS Special Agents and State Troopers to conduct gang and drug investigative operations and a team of DPS Intelligence Analysts. DPS will also provide one helicopter and two patrol planes to provide direct air support.
“The State of Texas is working closely with HPD to provide the necessary resources that will effectively combat violence in the Houston community,” said Governor Abbott. “The support that DPS is providing to HPD will protect Houstonians and crack down on illegal and violent activity, including road rage-related shootings, within the city.”
As the nation awaits emergency use authorization for the first COVID-19 vaccine, the White House held a vaccine summit moderated by the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
A panel of governors participated in the summit, including Gov. Greg Abbott, to discuss the development, regulation, delivery, and administration of coronavirus vaccines across the country. Abbott was joined by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
During the panel, Abbott said that Texas began preparing for the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines back in the spring and preparations have been accelerated in the past few months.
“Over the past month, we have already signed up more than 7,200 providers in the state of Texas that are waiting for these vaccines as we speak right now, ready to make sure that we do put needles in arms within 24 to 48 hours,” Abbott said. “And as soon as we get those vaccines, the providers that are signed up include hospitals and private health care providers, nursing homes, local pharmacies, and these large pharmacy chains.”
You can watch the full panel below. The governors begin speaking at the 34-minute mark.
Abbott said with the help of “Operation Warp Speed,” Texas was able to set up a large number of cold change storage operations so that the state would be equipped to adequately handle the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The governor also said that the State has run several mock distributions to eliminate any potential missteps.
Additionally, Abbott said Texas has established ways to communicate with those who receive the vaccine including a reminder card letting them know when and where to return for their second dose, as well as follow-up text messages, phone calls, email reminders, and “a statewide communication plan to make sure there is an inescapable way” for people to make sure they’re getting fully vaccinated.
The governor stated that he believes Texas is in a position to get 100,000 people vaccinated within 24 to 48 hours of receiving the first round of vaccines. He also emphasized that while he believes demand for the vaccines will be high and the state’s supplies will be used up, no one in Texas will be required to take a vaccine.
“We just want to make sure my fellow Texans know that we know that you are not going to be forced to take a vaccine against your will,” Abbott said.
Finally, Abbott addressed the need to get vaccines to underserved communities. He said that in a state as large and diverse as Texas, part of the job is identifying where those communities are, as many are located in large urban areas, but others are located in sparse rural areas that may not have access to health care at all. However, the State has a plan to reach those in need.
“The way that we are going to get to them is we have put together a bunch of mobile medical units that will be taking the vaccines to the people where they are in underserved communities to make sure that they will have access to those vaccines also,” Abbott said. “And we’ll be making clear exactly one thing … and that is the importance that they know that these vaccines are free. That’s not going to come with any money out of your pocket thanks in large part, thanks in total part, to Operation Warp Speed and what y’all have done here.”
The Operation Warp Speed summit kicked off around 1 p.m. CST. At the same time, President-elect Joe Biden was announcing his new health team. The governors’ panel portion began around 3:45 p.m.
Last week, the Texas Department of State Health Services released a list of hospitals that have been approved to receive the first round of vaccines in week one of distribution. According to that list, Central Texas hospitals will receive a total of 16,575 doses.
Travis County
Seton Medical Center – 2,925 doses
Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas – 1,950 doses
South Austin Medical Center – 975 doses
Dell Seton Medical Center – 1,950 doses
UT Health Austin (Dell Medical School) – 2,925 doses
Austin State Hospital – 975 doses
North Austin Medical Center – 975 doses
St. David’s Medical Center – 975 doses
Williamson County
Round Rock Medical Center – 975 doses
Baylor Scott and White Health Medical Center Round Rock – 975 doses
Texas on Tuesday reported more than 15,000 newly confirmed daily cases of the coronavirus amid spikes in cases and hospitalization as winter approaches.
The Texas Department of State Health Services also said 9,028 people were hospitalized across the state. Last week marked the first time Texas surpassed a daily count of 9,000 hospitalizations since a deadly summer outbreak.
During the summer outbreak, the state saw the numbers of new daily cases go just past 10,000 for the first time. Since late November, the new daily cases have soared past 10,000 on several days, with 15,103 new cases reported Tuesday, according to state health officials.
The true number of infections in Texas is likely higher because many haven’t been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected and not feel sick.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University say Texas has had more than 23,000 COVID-19 related deaths so far, the second highest in the U.S.
Over the last two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases has increased by 17%, according to Johns Hopkins. The university says that one in every 309 people in Texas tested positive in the past week.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up within weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause severe symptoms and be fatal. The vast majority of people recover.
Houston police chief Art Acevedo has announced a task force to combat road rage incidents on our streets and roadways, where law enforcement will proactively look for people committing crimes.
Acevedo said the initiative, revealed Tuesday morning, is in partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Acevedo said that, according to preliminary crime analysis, there have been about 200 incidents in the first 10 months of this year that have ended with someone being shot on our roadways compared to 150 during the same period a year ago.
Six of the road rage incidents through October have led to murder, Acevedo said, including the case involving HPD Sgt. Sean Rios.
Rios was shot to death in November during a gun battle in north Houston.
“Anyone who thinks they can go out there and engage in road rage and commit aggravated assault and thinks they’re going to get away with it would be wrong,” Acevedo said.
Texas DPS has been directed by Gov. Greg Abbott’s office to support violent crime initiatives such as this road rage prevention effort. DPS’s role will include having marked and unmarked units on Houston roads to locate aggressive drivers and respond to road rage incidents.
According to the agency, road rage incidents are often underreported when authorities respond to crashes.
This partnership comes after two road rage shootings just days apart in the last two weeks.
Police have released the sketches of one incident that happened back in November on the North Loop. In that case, authorities believe the road shooting may have started on I-45 and eventually ended up on 610, where one of the suspects fired shots at 21-year-old Isaac Mendoza. Mendoza died at the hospital.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the HPD Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
Then on Friday, Dec. 4, another shooting was reported that may have stemmed from road rage, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said. That incident involved at least four vehicles at the intersection of Highway 249 and Bammel N. Houston. Deputies found a man between 35 and 45 years old with a gunshot wound. A mother and three children were also taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
Gonzalez referenced the Dec. 4 shooting at the press conference, calling on the community to slow down, calm down, and stop with the aggressive driving.
“This year has been very difficult, and there’s been a lot of loss both in our community and in our nation, and we shouldn’t be compounding that suffering with unnecessary carnage on our roadways,” Gonzalez said.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg also attended the announcement. She explained that suspects involved could have their vehicles subjected to forfeiture as a criminal instrument.
“Just the fact that you’re using a gun, putting people’s lives at risk allows the district attorney’s office, under law, to subject a vehicle to forfeiture as a criminal instrument,” Ogg said. “I’m pledging our office will do this where the evidence supports it and where the officers have gathered enough information from you the public, which is often misreported as a minor traffic crime, but is often something far more deadly.”
Ogg also pleaded for the public to report reckless driving, anyone using guns on the roads, and freeway and road stunts and takeovers.
According to a fact sheet from the Texas Department of Insurance, approximately 80% of polled drivers express serious aggression, anger, or road rage at least once a year.
AAA says road rage is preventable and there are ways you can avoid getting into an incident or try to deescalate the situation.
Mayor Sylvester Turner released the following statement today following the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s announcement that it would hold a 2021 event..
“I have spoken with Rodeo officials, and I thank them for working closely with the City of Houston and Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Persse about moving the show to May 2021. While no one can predict the future of the coronavirus pandemic, I am optimistic that the multiple vaccines that are being developed and manufactured in the United States will improve our chances of returning to normal activities by the middle of next year.
“Houston and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo are synonymous. It is hard to imagine one without the other. People worldwide come to our City to compete for grand prizes and enjoy the carnival and concerts.
“When the Rodeo was canceled earlier this year because of COVID-19 community spread, the decision was based on data and science. As we move forward, the City of Houston will continue to monitor the positivity rate, hospital capacity, wastewater virus load, and reproduction rate. If we work together, we can create a safe environment for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
“I encourage people to do their part to blunt the virus’s progression; that means wearing a mask, social distancing, washing your hands frequently, and getting tested. I also encourage everyone to get vaccinated when the opportunity becomes available.”
A new study of airflow patterns inside a car offers some suggestions for potentially reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission while sharing rides with others.
The researchers used computer models to simulate the airflow inside a compact car with various combinations of windows open or closed.
The simulations showed that opening windows—the more windows the better—created airflow patterns that dramatically reduced the concentration of airborne particles exchanged between a driver and a single passenger.
Blasting the car’s ventilation system didn’t circulate air nearly as well as a few open windows, the researchers found.
Opening windows on the opposite side of the car from where people are sitting create an airflow pattern that reduces particle transmission between driver and passenger.
“Driving around with the windows up and the air conditioning or heat on is definitely the worst scenario, according to our computer simulations,” says co-lead author Asimanshu Das, a graduate student in Brown University’s School of Engineering.
“The best scenario we found was having all four windows open, but even having one or two open was far better than having them all closed,” Das says.
The researchers stress that there’s no way to eliminate risk completely—and, of course, current guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notes that postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect personal and community health. The goal of the study was simply to study how changes in airflow inside a car may worsen or reduce the risk of pathogen transmission.
The computer models used in the study simulated a car, loosely based on a Toyota Prius, with two people inside—a driver and a passenger sitting in the back seat on the opposite side from the driver. The researchers chose that seating arrangement because it maximizes the physical distance between the two people (though still less than the 6 feet recommended by the CDC). The models simulated airflow around and inside a car moving at 50 miles per hour, as well as the movement and concentration of aerosols coming from both driver and passenger.
Aerosols are tiny particles that can linger in the air for extended periods of time. They are thought to be one way in which the SARS-CoV2 virus is transmitted, particularly in enclosed spaces.
Part of the reason that opening windows is better in terms of aerosol transmission is that it increases the number of air changes per hour (ACH) inside the car, which helps to reduce the overall concentration of aerosols. But ACH was only part of the story, the researchers say.
The study showed that different combinations of open windows created different air currents inside the car that could either increase or decrease exposure to remaining aerosols.
Because of the way air flows across the outside of the car, air pressure near the rear windows tends to be higher than the pressure at the front windows. As a result, air tends to enter the car through the back windows and exit through the front windows. With all the windows open, this tendency creates two more-or-less independent flows on either side of the cabin. Since the occupants in the simulations were sitting on opposite sides of the cabin, very few particles end up being transferred between the two. The driver in this scenario is a slightly higher risk than the passenger because the average airflow in the car goes from back to front, but both occupants experience a dramatically lower transfer of particles compared to any other scenario.
The simulations for scenarios in which some but not all windows are down yielded some possibly counterintuitive results. For example, one might expect that opening windows directly beside each occupant might be the simplest way to reduce exposure. The simulations found that while this configuration is better than no windows down at all, it carries a higher exposure risk compared to putting down the window opposite each occupant.
“When the windows opposite the occupants are open, you get a flow that enters the car behind the driver, sweeps across the cabin behind the passenger, and then goes out the passenger-side front window,” says Kenny Breuer, a professor of engineering and senior author of the research. “That pattern helps to reduce cross-contamination between the driver and passenger.”
It’s important to note, the researchers say, that airflow adjustment are no substitute for mask-wearing by both occupants when inside a car. And the findings are limited to potential exposure to lingering aerosols that may contain pathogens. The study did not model larger respiratory droplets or the risk of actually becoming infected by the virus.
Still, the researchers say the study provides valuable new insights into air circulation patterns inside a car’s passenger compartment—something that had received little attention before now.
“This is the first study we’re aware of that really looked at the microclimate inside a car,” Breuer says. “There had been some studies that looked at how much external pollution gets into a car, or how long cigarette smoke lingers in a car. But this is the first time anyone has looked at airflow patterns in detail.”
The study appears in the journal of Science Advances. Das co-led the research with Varghese Mathai, a former postdoctoral researcher at Brown who is now an assistant professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
