From the Desk of Chief Ray Schultz,

On Tuesday morning during the school zone times, MVPD officers were notified of a vehicle versus bicycle accident involving 2 children on Knipp at Taylorcrest. MVPD and VFD arrived on the scene where it was learned that 2 elementary school students had been hit by a vehicle making a turn from Knipp onto Taylorcrest.  Fortunately, the injuries to the 2 boys were minor as was the damage to their bicycles. It appears that the driver did not see the boys as they were riding their bikes on the sidewalk on their way to school and started to turn hitting one bike while the second bike ran into the car.

This is a strong reminder of how important it is to be extra careful during the morning and afternoon school zone hours.  When approaching a stop sign it is important to come to a complete stop and check both ways for vehicles as well as pedestrians and cyclists on the sidewalks, again coming from both directions. Please do not assume that a pedestrian, walker, runner, or cyclist will see you and stop or yield to you.  The vehicle at the stop sign needs to ensure that the pedestrian can safety pass unless clear eye contact is made and the pedestrian, walker, cyclist, or runner, waves signaling you through.

I am one of the daily runners out on area sidewalks, streets, and trails. I transverse throughout all 3 villages and I am also seeing an increasing number of vehicles rolling through stop signs. Officers will be stepping up enforcement efforts village wide, but especially along our primary school walk zone/routes. Citations will be issued for rolling stops, so please come to a complete stop and look both ways.

Starting this week, we have assigned one of our officers to a new power-shift schedule.  This officer will start his day at 2 pm and work until 11pm or midnight depending on calls and specific enforcement assignments. He will be assigned to monitor the afternoon school zones and walking routes, the evening rush hour traffic hot-spots and will be spending time on one of our bicycles both patrolling and conducting enforcement activities. He will be working Monday through Friday so he can address these issues throughout the entire work week. After it gets dark, he will transition to neighborhood bicycle patrols and enhanced DWI enforcement.

Graduation season is officially here, so first, our congratulations to all our high school and college graduates.  With graduation often comes parties and celebrations and we have already started to see a few of them in the villages. This on top of some nice cool evenings with some residents opening their windows is resulting in a few noise issues.  If you are hosting a party, please be courteous to your neighbors and monitor the noise/music and the parking. (our 2 largest complaints). We recommend that you inform neighbors of your party, especially if it is an outside event with music and/or valet parking.  If neighbors know about the event and what time the party will go to, they are less likely to complain and often will make other arrangements. If you have outside music, please point speakers towards your home and not at your neighbors. Later in the evening music should be turned down as not to disturb neighbors or the event moved indoors.  We don’t like to have to shut down events so everyone’s cooperation goes a long way to helping keep the peace while allowing for the celebrations to occur.

A special thanks this week to our residents and friends of the Muslim community who provided an “Iftar” or “EID” meal for our officers and dispatchers on Tuesday. Our dayshift team enjoyed the traditional meal throughout the afternoon and our night-shift team was fed upon their arrival to begin their shift.  Also thank you to the residents and girl scouts who have dropped off several cases of girl scout cookies. The “lemonades” have been the first ones to go followed by the Peanut Butter. And finally, thanks for the Astro’s Tickets. We had a dispatcher attend Saturday’s game and one of our detectives won the Sunday tickets.

Thanks to City Councilor Susan Schwartz for inviting me to attend and to address the Harris County Mayor’s and City Councilors Association monthly meeting. We had a great time discussing the use of technology, especially the use of ALPR systems in addressing emerging crime issues.  All the cities present agreed that it is imperative that our police departments and city officials work together to aggressively go after the repeat offenders who continue to cause problems across the region.

I have attached a photograph from last weekends Color Run.  Have a great weekend. Chief Ray Schultz rschultz@mvpdtx.org

Weekly Report

Hunters Creek

4/24/22 at 1900 Hours. 600 Block of Voss. Traffic Violations.  Officers initiated a traffic stop after observing a traffic violation. Upon contacting the driver and checking the license plate officers determined that the plate did not belong to the vehicle it was displayed on.  The driver stated that he had taken the plate off another vehicle that he owned and was using it because he did not have one for the vehicle. The driver was also found to have a suspended license and not eligible to obtain one.  The driver was positively identified and issued multiple citations.  The expired license plates were tagged into evidence.

4/26/22 at 1230 Hours. 10600 Block of Fairlane Drive. Fraud. The victim learned while checking his bank account that a check that he issued had been intercepted, washed, and reissued to a person whom he did not know.  It is unknown how the check was stolen/intercepted.  Information about the check and the bank that cashed the check was obtained and provided to detectives for their follow up investigation.

4/26/22 at 1245 Hours. 10800 Block of Memorial Drive. ALPR HIT/ Missing Person/Silver Alert. Officers were alerted to a missing person/Silver alert on a vehicle by the ALPR system. Officers located the vehicle and attempted to stop the vehicle.  The vehicle failed to stop and continued driving across Memorial Drive from Voss.  Officers could see the driver was an elderly male who appeared to be confused. In the area on Briar Forrest and Gessner the vehicle got stuck in traffic at which time officers were able to exit their cars and approach the male.  He was given a ride to the MVPD station where his son was contacted to come and get his 89-year-old father. The vehicle was secured until it could be released to other family members.

4/26/22 at 1315 Hours. 10800 Block of Everwood. Fraud. The victim reported that she received notice of an electronic check that she had issued had been intercepted, reissued, and cashed by an unknown male suspect.  The business that the check was issued to, informed the victim that they have had other checks stolen by an unknown means in the past.  Information about the check, business and bank was collected and provided to detectives for their follow-up investigation.

4/26/22 at 1500 Hours. 10800 Block of Briar Branch. Identity Theft. The victim reported that she had received a new credit card for a new account in the mail that she had not requested. Upon further inquiry she learned the new line of credit was established by an unknown person who had used her personal information, including her maiden name for a large home improvement loan. The account was immediately closed by the bank. Information about the account was obtained and provided to detectives for their follow up investigation.

Bunker Hill

4/26/22 at 2100 Hours. 600 Block of Knipp. Identity Theft. The victim stated that she received a monthly statement for a new checking account that she did not open. Upon checking with the financial institution, she learned that a new account had been opened by an unknown subject who had used her personal identifiers.  The zero-balance account was closed, and an alert placed on her other accounts. Information about the account was collected and provided to detectives for their follow up investigation.

4/27/22 at 1530 Hours. 1-100 Block of Rip Van Winkle. Forgery.  The victim stated that upon examining his checking account he found 2 checks that he did not write to have been issued and cashed.  The victim still had possession of the 2 checks in his checkbook. Information about the checks and banks was obtained and provided to detectives for their follow up investigation.

4/28/22 at 0830 Hours. 200 Block of Gessner. Criminal Mischief. The victim stated that sometime during the evening an unknown person(s) broke out a rear window of his vehicle. Nothing was missing from the vehicle just the damage to the glass had occurred. A report was taken. The victim stated that he would review video footage of the area.

Piney Point

4/26/22 at 2145 Hours. 8300 Block of San Felipe. Recovered Stolen Motor Vehicle. Officers stopped the listed vehicle after observing a traffic violation.  Upon checking the license plate, it came back to a different vehicle. The driver stated that she had bought the vehicle from a Facebook Marketplace ad and the male who sold her the vehicle had not yet given her a title to register the vehicle. She had attempted to get a registration but was told that she had to obtain it from the seller.  The seller had stopped all email communications with the victim/driver after she had sent numerous emails asking for the title.   The driver had copies of the emails and a picture of the sellers ID.  The VIN number was checked, and it showed the vehicle to be stolen.  That victim was contacted, and he stated that he had been to a restaurant and used valet parking. Upon returning for his car, it was gone.  He had reported it stolen through HPD which was confirmed. The driver’s husband was contacted, and he confirmed how they had bought the car from an on-line posting. It was determined that the driver of the vehicle had been scammed into buying a stolen car.  The vehicle was recovered and towed. The driver was released with her husband who responded to the scene.