Crime Spikes in Downtown Houston

Some residents and businesses downtown say they've seen a surge in crime. From open drug dealing to assaults, the owner of jimmy john's says he'd like to see the area cleaned up.

"More patrolling of streets would be very good for businesses on Main and it would cut down on everything that needs to be cut down on," Jeffrey Thigpen says.

The Houston Police Officers' Union is not surprised in this surge.

"Well if you remember a couple of months ago our President Gary Blankenship said when the overtime budget was cut by $14 million that you're probably going to see an increase in crime," Ray Hunt says.

Hunt says downtown is just the tip of the iceberg. He says expect to see problems citywide as a result of the Houston Police Department being understaffed.

"We have beats that go unprotected, we have beats where there are no officers assigned to, we have lots of cases that go uninvestigated," Hunt says.

Hunt gave some examples: home and car burglaries, gas drive offs, class c misdemeanors under $50 - he says some of these cases may end up being ignored.

Hunt is not the only person saying this is a crisis.

In this letter to the local newspaper that was never published - Chief Harold Hurtt indicated HPD faced a serious staffing problem. In a comparison to other major cities Hurtt writes Houston could be short from 1,400 to 5,000 officers.

Just to ensure you got the point - once again hunt says HPD will pick and choose which cases they will pursue.

That could leave Thigpen and his sandwich shop low on the priority list in downtown Houston.