The METRO officer was sideswiped while assisting with another crash.

The crash happened at about 2 a.m. Friday.

In a unanimous decision, Houston Independent School District trustees voted to appoint attorney Myrna Lynn Guidry to the empty District IX board seat.

The seat was vacated last month by Wanda Adams, who resigned following her election as a justice of the peace.

Guidry has operated a private practice focusing on family and probate law for the past two decades.

She will fulfill Adams’ term which ends on Dec. 31, 2021.

The appointment comes before the HISD District Board of Education is scheduled to meet Thursday at 5 p.m.

The board is scheduled to accept a $250,000 grant from the school-based Healthcare Solutions Network to address students’ and parents’ mental health issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grant will be used at 10 participating schools to assist families whose students are enrolled in virtual or face-to-face instruction.

The following schools will receive the grant: Highland Heights and Wesley elementary schools; Attucks, Cullen, Henry, and Thomas middle schools; and Bellaire, Madison, North Forest, and Waltrip high schools.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, the board is set to approve an agreement for the University of Houston to hire, train and supervise select students to tutor and mentor HISD students enrolled in the district’s Miles Ahead Scholars (MAS) program, as well as targeted students who attend Kashmere, Wheatley and Worthing high schools.

The UH students would work with a teacher at the high schools or a program manager with the MAS program. UH, tutors would also provide MAS students with college application guidance.

The board is also scheduled to vote on the district’s annual targeted improvement plans for comprehensive support schools that require additional resources, and for schools that received an F rating from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) during the 2018-2019 school year.

Additionally, the board is set to accept a $20,000 donation from the family of the late Irma Rodriguez, who was a veteran teacher at Sanchez Elementary School.

The donation would be used for instructional classroom technology.

Rodriguez is remembered as a devoted, award-winning, generous teacher who donated toys, laptops, and groceries to assist students and their families.

Trustees are also scheduled to vote on a $20,000 cash donation from the Houston Texans and Reliant and NRG company, for eight HISD schools to support technology.

The Texans and Reliant are also donating $84,000 worth of drawstring bags, phone chargers, and Deshaun Watson jerseys and autographed footballs to reward attendance.

Also, the board will consider $10,000 worth of supplies and materials donated by FedEx’s Purple Totes campaign to four HISD elementary schools in response to wish lists provided by the schools.

Trustees will also consider a $31,700 in-kind donation of video production equipment and a sound mixing console from NASA’s Johnson Space Center for Sam Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center High School to support STEM education through student-led productions.

A La Marque police officer shot and killed a man Wednesday night, the department confirmed.

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.