(Galveston County Jail)
Friendswood-resident Danielle Marie Sandy, 21, was arrested on July 27 on charges of Burglary of a Habitation.

Pearland Police detectives investigating a home burglary recently tracked down stolen goods to a pawn shop and were able to arrest one of two suspects for their alleged involvement. Authorities report one suspect is still wanted by police.

According to Pearland Police reports, officers were dispatched to a home in the 1100 block of Gulfton after a homeowner reported returning from vacation to discover someone had forced the back door open and made away with a Sony PlayStation 4 console, eight video games and an assortment of fishing rods.

Detectives used the information to check pawn store records which allegedly revealed the names of two suspects.

Friendswood-resident Danielle Marie Sandy, 21, was taken into custody at a convenience store in Baycliff on Monday, July 27, on felony charges of burglary of a habitation. She is currently being held at the Pearland Jail on an $80,000 bond.

Missing suspect

Police officials are asking for the public’s help to locate the second suspect, identified as 23 year-old Christopher Allyn Cox. The two suspects, believed to be boyfriend and girlfriend, were homeless with their last known address reported to be in Friendswood.

Cox is described as a white male, six-feet-tall and 135 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Pearland Police Department at 281-997-4100. Callers may remain anonymous.

A driver was seriously injured following a two-vehicle collision at the intersection of Walnut St. and State Highway 35 (SH35) Sunday (Aug. 2).

According to Pearland Police reports, around 8 p.m. the driver of a white Ford 250 truck traveling east on Walnut St. t-boned a white Mercury Marquis that was traveling south on SH35.

The driver of the Marquis was trapped in the car following the crash. Pearland firefighters were called to the scene to extricate the victim. Meanwhile, a Life Flight ambulance was dispatched to the area and the victim was then rushed to Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Houston Medical Center for treatment.

The driver of the truck was not injured.

A witness at the scene reportedly told police the driver of the truck ran through the red light at the intersection immediately before the crash.

Police officials report a preliminary investigation found no evidence drugs or alcohol were factors in the accident.

Pearland Police Sgt. Ornaldo Ybarra has a unique position that spans two cities. Not only is he the supervisor of a night patrol shift in Pearland, but he is also a City Councilman, as well as Mayor Pro Tem, in the City of Pasadena.

A resident of Pasadena, Ybarra has been a member of City Council for six years. This is his second four-year term, which will be up in 2017. He secured his position in 2009 with approximately 55 percent of the vote against his opponent.

“I’ve always been interested in government,” Ybarra said. “There were several city issues I wanted to get involved in and that led to my bid for Council.”

Ybarra served as Mayor Pro Tem, a position that involves acting as mayor when the elected mayor cannot, in 2011 and was recently selected by his peers to serve again for a year in the same position. Johnny Isbell is the current Mayor and has held that office from 1981-1985, 1993-2001 and returned again in 2009. His term will expire in 2017.

Pasadena uses a mayor-council form of city government, which consists of a mayor and a number of council members. The mayor presides at council meetings and is the chief executive officer of the city. He is properly the head of the police force and the budgetary officer of the city. The council is the legislative agent. The proposals and appointments of the mayor are subject to council’s approval.

Ybarra has aspirations to run for mayor of Pasadena when Isbell’s term expires in 2017.

“I’d really like to see Pasadena move toward a council-manager form of government,” Ybarra said.

The council-manager form of local government combines the strong political leadership of elected officials in the form of a City Council with the strong managerial experience of an appointed City Manager. This type of government establishes a representative system where all power is concentrated in the elected council and where the council hires a professionally trained manager to oversee the delivery of public services.

As far as Ybarra’s law enforcement career goes, he has no plans to leave Pearland Police Department.

“I really enjoy where I work and whom I work with,” he said. “When the Lieutenant exam is offered, I’ll most likely go for it.”

With aspirations like these, Sgt. Ornaldo Ybarra is definitely one to watch.

A Corsicana man was recently indicted on felony drug possession charges in connection with a Pearland Police narcotics investigation in June.

According to Brazoria County court documents, Pearland Police officers were dispatched to the 1300 black of Main St. shortly after midnight Saturday, June 20 to investigate a car crash. Police talked with the drivers of both cars involved in the crash and it was discovered one had provided a false name. Upon further investigation, the man was identified as Danny Vantress Gipson, 35, from Corsicana. Police also discovered Gipson’s driver’s license was not valid and he was taken into custody of charges of driving with an invalid license and providing a false name to police.

During the arrest process, police searched the suspect and allegedly discovered a baggie in his front pocket containing cocaine and 35 Ecstasy tablets. The alleged drugs were seized and later tested in a lab, court records indicate.

Gipson was taken to the Pearland Jail and later released on a $5,000 bond. A Brazoria County Grand Jury recently reviewed the case and Gipson was indicted on felony charge of possession of a controlled substance (penalty group one). A Brazoria County Jury is expected to consider the charges in the coming weeks.

Pearland City Council held a Special Meeting at City Hall Monday (Aug. 17), along with three joint public hearings with the Planning and Zoning Commission. Among the topics discussed were the adoption of a new tax rate and police staffing issues.

Consideration of the proposed budget was added to the meeting agendas of Sept. 14 and Sept. 21. Council also set the required public hearing on the budget for Aug. 31.

Council passed a resolution, with a vote of four to one, to set the tax rate for the next fiscal year to .7053, which is lower than the current rate of .7193. Councilmembers Gary Moore, Derrick Reed, Tony Carbone and Greg Hill were in favor of this new rate; Councilmember Keith Ordeneaux was opposed.

As a result of the lower tax rate, the balance of the General Fund was decreased by $617,000. Council and staff discussed ways to offset expenditures.

City Manager Clay Pearson pointed out that the Streets and Sidewalks budget is a flexible, even though the original idea was to add to that number.

“We can’t add to streets and sidewalks like we wanted to because of the lowered tax rate from what had been projected,” he said. “Our streets are in pretty good shape now, but we need to be investing in a mix of fixes to keep them that way. The sidewalks need some work and have gaps as we are a growing city.”

Director of Finance Claire Bogard proposed an increase in garage sale permit revenue, which would add $36,000 to the General Fund. She also suggested reducing Street Maintenance by $581,000.

Public Works Assistant Director Michael Leech suggested a program that would solely focus on local streets to save money.

If these changes are adopted, any funds in excess of the General Fund balance policy on Sept. 30, after the yearly audit, would be used to replenish the Street Maintenance account.

Pearland Police Chief J.C. Doyle presented proposed departmental changes to Council. He emphasized the creation of a “proactive unit” that would require some re-structuring of the agency, such as moving a Lieutenant from the Crime Investigations Division and a Sergeant from the Person’s Crimes Unit.

The changes would include implementation of Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS), which uses location-based crime and accident data to determine the most effective way to use departmental personnel and other resources.

Other needs mentioned were in-car and body-worn cameras, improved radio communications, better fleet maintenance, ongoing training, Animal Services needs and adequate staffing.

Chief Doyle said that he had no problems with the budget as presented. “I didn’t see anything negative that couldn’t be worked through with the proposed budget of four officers and two sergeant position promotions,” he said.

Councilmembers Hill, Carbone, Moore and Reed expressed concern about police department staffing.

“We have 13 guys or less a third of the time spread out among 30 square miles,” said Carbone. “If we have a big incident, it’s not uncommon to see three or four units responding. It’s unacceptable to have such little staffing for such a big city. Houston folks come here just as we go there. I don’t want to fall behind the curve and have to play catch up when it comes to crime rates. We’ve been lucky so far.”

“I agree with Councilmember Carbone,” said Reed. “We just had that Kroger incident. Houston folks are coming down here. We have been lucky, especially at night when there’s more than one unit responding. It’s stretching folks thin. We’re down to budgeting for three officers because Pearland ISD is paying for one. It’s unfathomable to imagine we only need one new officer on the street because the others are promotions.”

Chief Doyle added that there are three officers currently in Field Training and seven more in the academy, expected to graduate in November.

Carbone reiterated that, “Public safety is primary concern of most of Council. The Police Department requested 16 officers last year and eight were funded. We need more officers. Even citizens say that. It’s been a clearly communicated goal for last two years and I can’t understand why this budget only proposes one additional patrol officer.”

Ordeneaux said, ”Everyone would like to see more officers, but how do we pay for it? I haven’t heard any answers. I hear lower the taxes. We turned down several opportunities for funding. How much longer are we going to put things off? We’re cutting one-time expenses and adding re-occurring ones. This will snowball to bigger issues.”

Mayor Reid added, “Law enforcement is changing. People seem to want to come to town and help themselves. There’s a fine veneer between the good guys and the bad guys. We can’t put a gate up. We can’t put enough patrol on street to eradicate crime, but what is proposed should be good enough.”

Because of some confusion about the actual number of officer positions proposed and the promotions to sergeant positions, Chief Doyle explained how officers move up in the department.

“Everyone starts in patrol, which is our manpower pool. Anyone who gets promoted or moved must come up in patrol first. We have 18 officers in A Squad, 17 in B Squad, 18 in C Squad and19 in D Squad. We have recently started looking at the numbers generated by officers instead of software. We are hoping staffing will get us better tools to predict how many officers we will need in the future,” said Doyle.

“I expected that we’d get the other eight officers left over from last year,” said Reed. “Either crime has gone down or something else significant has changed.”

“Any crime is too much crime,” replied Doyle. “I put a lot of stock in DDACTS. We look to our Crime Analyst for help in patrol. We can do things differently that won’t need so much manpower. We need a third party study to tell us what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong.”

“The fact is that we are bringing in new additional public safety people and they’ll be filtered in over time,” said Pearson. “We’re making a concerted effort with recruitment to deliver the numbers of positions of what was budgeted. The budget shows that in June 2015 there were 228 police and fire on the payroll, 32 more from the same payroll two years prior.

“We will start to see the benefits of new officers soon. Chief Doyle showed there are seven cadets in the academy and three more in the field training officer program coming on in April. In addition, Fire will be adding on nine full-time fire department personnel.

“We were at 100% staffed for a while in June, which is a first in several years. One person since resigned to go work for the U.S. Marshal’s Office. We had a civilian fill the Quartermaster position when he retired and dedicated an officer working with IT to detectives. We are a lot closer to where we wanted to be now,” Pearson said.

Deputy City Manager Jon Branson explained the costs. “Eight new officers would cost approximately $647,000 more in the budget and would have an impact on equipment and vehicles as well. This year, we heard it loud and clear and included four officers in the budget, which is what we thought was asked for,” he said.

“It’s too late now, unfortunately,” said Ordeneaux. “This is the third year in a row we have looked at health benefits and gone middle of the road. We’ve done well on raises for staff. If we’re not raising the tax rate or cutting spending, we are looking at $1.2 million in total cuts from the proposed budget. I don’t see where the money will come from. We tied our hands when we set the lower tax rate.”

Pearson said that the public safety discussion would continue on Aug. 31, giving staff time to look at the budget numbers again and make new recommendations.

The three public hearing topics were the adoption of the 2015 Comprehensive Plan and two zone change requests. No action may be taken at public hearings, so decisions will be made on these issues at future meetings.

To learn more about the proposed budget, the Comprehensive Plan and future meeting dates, visit PearlandTX.gov.

Det. Cecil Arnold with Pearland Police Dept.

The Pearland Police Department recently conducted an online sting, designated as operation “Back to School,” in an effort to identify and arrest suspects engaged in the online sexual exploitation of juveniles. The operation resulted in the arrest of 16 adult male suspects and was conducted in conjunction with the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (HMICAC).

“We prevented the assault, or worse, of at least 16 children by being proactive instead of reactive. If you’re looking to victimize a child sexually in Pearland, we will identify you. We will find you. You will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If you’re thinking about assaulting a child in Pearland, find a different hobby,” – Det. Cecil Arnold said.

In this type of crime, suspects use various internet sites to make contact with juvenile victims and then attempt to lure them to meet for the purpose of sexual activity. During “Back to School,” trained investigators posed as minors while online and identified suspects who sought to meet children for sexual purposes.

When the suspects arrived for the meeting with the minor child, they were met instead by officers of the Pearland Police Department, who arrested them.

Those arrested were men between the ages of 20 – 58. Police said another suspect, Jeffrey Brasfield, is deceased. The medical examiner is investigating.

Suspect Jake Leura from Webster received additional charges of possession of child pornography (Harris County).

“This was a personnel-intensive event consisting of multiple agencies pooling their resources for the common good,” Pearland Police Dept. Lt. Patrick Savage said.

Det. Arnold has been involved with HMICAC since 2008. This was the first joint task force in the Galveston-Brazoria County Area.

Similar operations have been waged by HMICAC, most recently in Fort Bend County, Galveston County, and Harris County. Task force members for this operation included representatives of the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office, Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, Galveston Police Department, Harris County Constable Precinct 1, Houston Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations – Galveston, Jones Creek Marshal’s Office, Pearland Police Department and Webster Police Department.

The Task Force is an example of inter-agency cooperation and the results that can be achieved when agencies pool their resources to combat a societal foe.

The following suspects were arrested and charged with Online Solicitation of a Minor – 2nd Degree Felony. The penalty for a second degree penalty is 2 to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. All were transported to the Pearland Police Department detention facility and will face charges in Brazoria County:

Keith Davidson; Miguel Gonzalez Banda; Edwin Cedillo-Miranda; Justin Gadd; Pablo Ibarra; Jonathan Copeman; Ayal Goldberg; Jake Luera; Bradely May; Lorenzo Perez; Erike Ramirez; Marcelino Romero-Lucas; Benjamin Rondon; Sajid Qureshi and Jesus Santana.

Kristi Nix
Pearland Police Department Lt. Pat Savage (speaking at left) and Lt. Cecil Arnold answer questions from reporters.

The Pearland Police Department recently conducted an online sting, designated as operation “Back to School,” in an effort to identify and arrest suspects engaged in the online sexual exploitation of juveniles. The operation resulted in the arrest of 16 adult male suspects and was conducted in conjunction with the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (HMICAC).

“We prevented the assault, or worse, of at least 16 children by being proactive instead of reactive. If you’re looking to victimize a child sexually in Pearland, we will identify you. We will find you. You will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If you’re thinking about assaulting a child in Pearland, find a different hobby,” Det. Cecil Arnold said.

In this type of crime, suspects use various internet sites to make contact with juvenile victims and then attempt to lure them to meet for the purpose of sexual activity. During “Back to School,” trained investigators posed as minors while online and identified suspects who sought to meet children for sexual purposes.

When the suspects arrived for the meeting with the minor child, they were met instead by officers of the Pearland Police Department, who arrested them.

In the days leading up to the sting, detectives visited chat rooms posing as minors in an effort to identify online predators looking for child victims.

“We had an apartment that was provided to us as a takedown location. Once we made contact with people who were using the Internet to sexually-exploit minors and they were asking to meet the children, they came to the location and instead of meeting with a child, they met with a police officer and were taken into custody,” Arnold said.

When they realized police were waiting to meet them and not a child, some suspects grew angry, some cried and some tried to explain away why they were there with claims it was just a fantasy or that they were just curious about what might happen.

“However, the chat records we had showed these individuals had a more sinister motive,” Det. Arnold said.

Some suspects brought alcohol or marijuana to share with their potential victims, police officials said. Other suspects brought condoms. One suspect confessed to having a large amount of child pornography stored on his home computer and now faces additional charges.

“I would say the mere fact that the suspects showed up for sex acts with a child means they are a big threat to our community,” Det. Arnold said.

When asked how parents could protect their children from online predators, Detective Arnold said the best defense is to carefully monitor’s a child’s online activities.

Those arrested were men between the ages of 20 – 58. Police said another suspect, Jeffrey Brasfield, is deceased. The medical examiner is investigating.

Suspect Jake Leura from Webster received additional charges of possession of child pornography (Harris County).

“This was a personnel-intensive event consisting of multiple agencies pooling their resources for the common good,” Pearland Police Dept. Lt. Patrick Savage said.

Det. Arnold has been involved with HMICAC since 2008. This was the first joint task force in the Galveston-Brazoria County Area.

Similar operations have been waged by HMICAC, most recently in Fort Bend County, Galveston County, and Harris County. Task force members for this operation included representatives of the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office, Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, Galveston Police Department, Harris County Constable Precinct 1, Houston Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations – Galveston, Jones Creek Marshal’s Office, Pearland Police Department and Webster Police Department.

The Task Force is an example of inter-agency cooperation and the results that can be achieved when agencies pool their resources to combat a societal foe.

The following suspects were arrested and charged with Online Solicitation of a Minor – 2nd Degree Felony. The penalty for a second degree penalty is 2 to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. All were transported to the Pearland Police Department detention facility and will face charges in Brazoria County:

The suspects:

• Ayal Goldberg, 26, of League City
• Benjamin Rondon, 23, of Conroe
• Bradley May, 32, of Houston
• Edwin Cedillo-Miranda, 24, of Highlands
• Erike Ramirez, 36, of Pearland
• Jake Luera, 29, of Webster
• Jeffrey Brasfield, 58, of San Antonio (deceased)
• Jesus Santana, 28, of Pasadena
• Jonathan Copeman, 26, of Houston
• Justin Gadd, 27, of Jones Creek
• Keith Davidson, 48, of West Columbia
• Lorenzo Perez, 20, of Houston
• Marcelino Romero-Lucas, 34, of Baycliff
• Miguel Gonzalez Banda, 24, of Houston
• Pablo Ibarra, 27, of Houston
• Sajid Qureshi, 27, of Pearland