A HOUSTON TWO-FER

HPD cruiser, suspect crash into neighboring homes during high-speed pursuit

A car chase involving Houston police and a white Chevy Malibu ended in both vehicles embedded in neighboring homes in East End, Houston.

 

By Dan Carson

 

Houston Chronicle

May 18, 2023 

 

Both an HPD officer and a suspect ended up embedding their vehicles into the sides of neighboring homes on Thursday afternoon after a high-speed pursuit in Houston's East End, officials say.

 

A high-speed pursuit through Houston's East End on Thursday ended with a suspect and a Houston police officer plowing their vehicles into adjacent homes in a residential area.

ABC 13's Mycah Hatfield tweeted images from the bizarre, skid-marked scene. Hatfield's photos show an HPD cruiser and a white Chevy Malibu embedded in the street-facing sides of two neighboring homes. No one was injured in the pursuit, which Hatfield reports began shortly after noon on Thursday near the I-10 Baytown East Freeway.

"Houston police were involved in a chase this morning that ended with both the HPD cruiser and car being pursued in homes. No injuries," Hatfield tweeted. 

Houston Police Department officials told Hatfield that the chase was triggered after local FLOCK cameras identified the white car as possibly being involved in a recent robbery. FLOCK cameras are small, lightweight cameras put into use by Houston police in recent years. The technology scans license plates and uses cell signals to cross-check drivers' tags against FBI, National Crime Information Center and Texas Crime Information Center indexes of stolen and wanted vehicles.

Thursday's chase at times eclipsed 80 miles per hour, according to Hatfield, and is the latest example of an HPD officer losing control and going off the road while driving at high speed. In 2022 a grand jury declined to charge HPD Officer Orlando Hernandez after the then-25-year-old jumped a curb and fatally struck Sunnyside resident Michael Wayne Jackson while responding to a reported car-jacking. Body camera footage released by HPD showed Hernandez driving between 80 and 100 mph with one hand on the wheel down wet residential roads before jumping a curb and killing Jackson, whose family says was walking home from the barber at the time.