Deadly crime spree prompts scrutiny
Officials: Suspect in 3 slayings cut off ankle monitor, highlighting gaps in tracking parole offenders
As investigators build their case against the man they have accused of cutting off his ankle monitor and killing three people, top law officials say the tragedy raises questions about the oversight and tracking of parole violators in Houston.
Earlier this week, police arrested Jose Gilberto Rodriguez, 46, who has since been charged with two counts of capital murder. According to police, he cut off his ankle monitor and went into hiding from parole officers.
On Wednesday, new documents from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice provided additional details about when officials learned Rodriguez had absconded from supervision, and raised troubling questions about the effectiveness of the existing system used to monitor parolees convicted of violent offenses.
The Houston police chief, as well as the county sheriff, both pressed to improve the electronic tracking system by cutting the time it takes to notify local authorities when parolees tamper with their electronic monitoring systems or otherwise violate conditions of their parole. The triple slaying was the second time this month a dangerous parolee fitted with an ankle monitor violated the terms of his release but was not arrested for days.
Currently, 4,954 parolees across Texas are monitored by GPS or electronic monitoring, said TDCJ spokesman Jeremy Desel. Approximately 1,200 of those live in Houston.
Rodriguez, 46, was paroled from state prison on Sept. 29, according to Desel. He was re-
to wear an ankle monitor. He registered as a sex offender, submitted to a polygraph examination and had reported to his parole officer. After his release, he first was sent to a halfway house in Dallas County. In December, he was transferred to a similar facility in Harris County, and then transferred to a “Home Plan.”
Then, according to authorities, he cut off his ankle monitor July 5, but a warrant for his arrest would not come for several days.
One of 84,000
The effectiveness of the system is vital to public safety because Rodriguez was one of 84,000 parolees living in Texas. Approximately 18,000 of them live in Harris County and the nine counties that surround it, according to state data, where they are overseen by 340 local parole officers.
At the time of Rodriguez’s alleged crime spree, TDCJ listed approximately 2,500 parolees with active warrants for their arrest, and 500 of them were classified as offenders with a history of violence.
Rodriguez, because he was a registered sex offender and a violent criminal, had to wear an ankle monitor that used GPS technology to track his movements.
An ankle monitor company under contract with the state oversees parolee activity for any violations and receives automatic alerts of attempted ankle monitor tampering, Desel said. If the devices register a violation, a message is sent to TDCJ’s Parole Division. During normal business hours, those alerts go directly to the parolee’s direct parole officer. On weekends, holidays and after hours, alerts are sent to the Parole Division’s command center.
After being notified of a potential violation, parole officers investigate. In Rodriguez’s case, his ankle monitor’s battery died July 8. A warrant was issued for his arrest that same day.
The following day, however, police say Rodriguez invaded a home in northwest Harris County, terrorized an 87-yearold homeowner at gunpoint and stole a car. Just a few days later, on July 13, authorities found a 62year-old Cypress woman dead and her car stolen. The following day, police found the first body they say they’ve tied to Rodriguez — that of Allie Barrow, 28, who was discovered at a Mattress Firm where she worked.
A day later, according to police, Rodriguez shot and critically wounded a MetroLift driver just north of downtown Houston. Hours later, police found the body of 57-year-old Edward Magaña — the last of Rodriguez’s victims — inside a Mattress One on the North Freeway.
As a widespread search for Rodriguez unfolded, Harris County sheriff’s deputies spotted the convict on Tuesday morning and arrested him after a 14-minute chase. They found a handgun on the seat of the car he allegedly stole. ‘There has to be a way’
Local law enforcement leaders said the incident highlighted the need to find a way to quickly track down parole violators.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the current system reveals communication gaps between TDCJ and local law enforcement.
“There has to be a better way to identify those individuals that are parole violators who pose a serious threat to public safety,” Gonzalez said.
Rodriguez’s case is not the only one in recent days that raised concerns about the monitoring of dangerous parolees. Earlier this month, parolee Garry Jenkins, 56, slipped out of his house after curfew — a violation that should have been detected by the ankle monitor that was a condition of his parole — and later allegedly stabbed his mother to death. Five days later, after being arrested for violating parole, he was charged with murder.
Police Chief Art Acevedo said the recent incidents highlighted the need to notify law enforcement of potential parole violations more quickly.
“We need to come up with a process that’s almost instantaneous,” said Acevedo, who added that he plans to try to work with other departments around the area to create a regional task force dedicated to responding to parole violations.
Houston Police Officers’ Union President Joseph Gamaldi agreed.
“We need to know when these monitors are … being cut off, so we can send people out there to look up these people and make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do,” Gamaldi said. “Three days is entirely too long before we know about it, that (someone) could get out there, do crimes and victimize people in our community.”
Ankle monitors can spark alerts for a variety of reasons, said Scott Henson, a criminal justice reform advocate and editor of Grits for Breakfast, a popular blog devoted to criminal justice reform in Texas. Parolees have inadvertently triggered ankle monitor notifications by jumping into a swimming pool, Henson said, adding that simiquired lar malfunctions are common and can mean delays while parole officers verify reports of violations.
“There is fuzzy data around ankle bracelets,” Henson said. A ‘horrifying’ case
The sheer number of parole violators makes it unrealistic that law enforcement can track them all down, he said, citing data from a 2016 report from TDCJ. It showed 12,833 parolees across the state had violated conditions of their early release but did not had their parole revoked.
Other criminal justice reform advocates bristled at what they said were overly simplistic characterizations of parolees, explaining that the vast majority of them are not violent.
“This is a horrifying and extraordinary case. The reason it’s horrifying is because it’s rare. It’s not because (Rodriguez) was on parole,” said Doug Smith, a policy analyst at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition who was previously convicted on robbery charges and who is on parole himself. “We have to recognize that there are 100,000 people on parole, and the majority are charged with nonviolent offenses.” st.john.smith@chron.com twitter.com/stjbs