Dec. 8, 2002, 11:45PM East End vigilantes arm to cut crime rate Other residents want to boost area's image By ZANTO PEABODY Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

Sandra Liebeg says she practices shooting because she has to.

The young men at whom she fears she may have to aim her gun some night use the same firing range -- and bring their own targets.

"They don't miss their targets," said Liebeg, an airline flight attendant who last week offered to enlist in a vigilante group patrolling the Eastwood neighborhood.

The chance meetings between Liebeg and the people she suspects are gang members are the kind of encounters that characterize, for some, the conflicted life in a historic sector both proud of its charm and unnerved by a growing crime rate.

Residents there want to clear a tarnished image of the East End as a rundown, crime-ridden swath of Houston. They brag about stylish old bungalows, a thriving manufacturing base and more development on the horizon.

At the same time, a more critical minority stands unsatisfied by police efforts to curb crime, disappointed by what they see as neglect and willing to lend a gun to the cause of the vigilante crew that has offered to fix the crime problem.

Frank Black, an Eastwood resident, formed an armed patrol of neighbors who two weeks ago set out to look for gang members. At the request of the Houston Police Department, the group has temporarily stopped patrolling.

Liebeg, who moved to the Eastwood section of the East End two years ago because it was affordable and charming, is a regular at gun ranges.

The only thing scarier than gangbangers in her neighborhood, she said, is their accuracy.

Since moving to the neighborhood, Liebeg said, she has made repeated calls for the city to condemn two vacant properties that attract vagrants and junkies. A few months ago, she saw a man talking on a cell phone in her driveway at 2:30 one morning.

"I can't just shoot the place up," she said. "But like Mr. Black, I'm ready to take this into my own hands."

To the gun-toting crowd, crime means everything. The numbers may support their fears.

Last year, incidents of major crime rose about 23 percent in the East End after a series of declines since the mid-1990s. Rape, robbery and aggravated assaults increased more sharply in Black's neighborhood, climbing 38 percent from 2000 to 2001.

Some residents' complaints focus on the presence of Hispanic youths in the streets. Most of the area's youth are Hispanic, and some sport the look shared by gangsters and pop stars emulating gangsters.

Henry Garcia, a resident who is partially disabled, said it is time for more residents to take up arms.

Young men torment Garcia by spraying Mace through open windows and killing his prized Italian cypress trees, he said.

"Get me a flamethrower," said Garcia, a former Houston Police Department civilian employee. "If you want peace, you have to go to war. Isn't that what every president has done in this country? What's the difference between me and the president?"

Other residents have said they would join the armed watch, as well.

Harris County Precinct 6 Constable Victor Trevino agreed that some crimes have been on the rise. He cautioned, however, that residents should rely on law enforcement to reverse that trend.

"Maybe there's a sense of frustration because we can do a better job," Trevino said.

Police have become more relaxed after successes in reducing crime and gang activity in the past few years, Trevino said. Also, he said, the constable's Zebra Squad, created in 1994 to arrest parole violators, has not been as active since that duty is now shared with Houston police and the sheriff's office.

Despite a rise in crime figures, though, the East End has made a resurgence with $100 million in development under way or planned. Industrial buildings are giving way to loft apartments. Pre-World War II bungalows are being renovated.

The vintage mid-century appearance of the East End is both boon and bane.

"We have a lot of manufacturing and warehousing," said Mary Margaret Hansen, president of the Greater East End Management District. "It has a certain look. When you compare us to everything new, like new stucco storefronts west of downtown, we look kind of dingy. People think if we're dingy, we must be a scary place.

"I've lived here 10 years, and it's not," Hansen said.

With high occupancy in the commercial areas, employment in the East End is up. Measured against business districts nationwide, Hansen said, the East End is the 28th-largest employment area in the country.

The neighborhood's identity, like much of Houston's, is in flux. An aggressive graffiti abatement program seeks to erase gang tags from East End buildings.

The 16-square-mile East End is a nearly triangular slice jutting eastward from the Union Pacific Railroad tracks downtown to the Port of Houston.

It is where Houston began, in a sense. Germans, Italians, Czechs and Mexicans landed here first, Hansen said, and Harrisburg in the East End was a capital of the Republic of Texas in 1836. Only after failing to close a deal on the Harrisburg site did the Allen brothers move west and establish Houston.

The city annexed the East End in 1926.

The Anglo population in Eastwood, where Frank Black operates, has dropped in the past 20 years from 31 percent of the population in 1980 to 13 percent in 2000. During that span, the percentage of Hispanic residents jumped from 64 percent to 79 percent.

Other minorities rose from 5 percent to 8 percent.

Hansen said changes in population may contribute to the unease of some residents.

"I think some people are threatened by young people who look a certain way," she said. "Today body piercing and tattoos are a fashion statement, not about gangs."

In a recent letter to the Chronicle, Burnham Terrell disputed claims that gang violence was rampant in the East End.

"Christmas decorations are going up, and we and our neighbors welcome the season of peace and good will," Terrell wrote.

Constable Trevino, who grew up in the East End, said its residents have been on the leading edge of citizen involvement for more than 20 years.

"I don't agree with any vigilante types," Trevino said. "But we cannot replace citizen involvement, the eyes and ears of the police. The people here are really good for that."

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2002