Cocaine

HPD Officers Arrested for Shady Coke Dealings, Face Life Imprisonment

The coke game was kind to Houston Police Department officers until Sunday when the two 26-year-olds were arrested when they reported for duty. Emerson Canizales of Kingwood and Michael Miceli of Humble have been accused of accepting $1,000 bribes and smuggling five kilos of cocaine with an intent ... More >>

Kevin Corley's Murder-For-Hire/Drug Complaint Reads Like Quentin Tarantino Movie

Kevin Corley was one of a group of men whose arrests were announced today by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston, and let's just say the man makes for a good criminal complaint. It reads like a Quentin Tarantino rip-off and has guns, drugs and a murder for hire in which the killer promised to car ... More >>

Ryan Earl Whitton: Swipes Bar Tip Jar, Racks Up Felony DWI

Looks like 24-year-old Ryan Earl Whitton was wearing his bad-idea jorts when he hit the bars of Bryan Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. Police there say Whitton swiped a tip jar off the bar at Carney's Pub and Grill -- a surefire way to endear yourself to bar staff forever. Numerous witnes ... More >>

TCU Football Players Are in a Drug Ring -- "Big Time" Football Hits Fort Worth

Ladies and gentlemen, your TCU Stoned Frogs​In January 2010, TCU finally made it to a BCS bowl game when they played the Boise State Broncos. The Horned Frogs lost that game 17-10, so any feeling that they hit the "big time" had to be somewhat muted. So the next season, not only did the Horne ... More >>

Morris "Big Boy" Jones: Luck Runs Out for (Alleged) Westside Fence

According to court records, police already had Morris "Big Boy" Jones over a barrel when they rolled up outside his Katy home. A criminal complaint shows they had already seized more than $30,000 worth of stolen Palais Royal threads from his storefront way out Clay Road. And when police went to visi ... More >>

Chicago Bears WR Sam Hurd Has a Ring...a Drug Ring!

The Stringer Bell School of Entrepreneurship.​I remember former Houston Texans (and now Washington Redskins) wide receiver David Anderson telling me a couple years ago about a program that the NFL offered players in which they could travel to prestigious universities during the off season and ... More >>

Jeffrey Tomorris Wright : Escapes From Trunk To Tell Cops About Buying Coke With Counterfeit Bills

Sounds like quite a scene for Houston Police to roll up on last month... According to court records, on October 16, a squad car was dispatched to the scene of a disturbance with a weapon in the 4500 block of Yale, just north of Crosstimbers in Independence Heights. Just as they arrived, they saw 3 ... More >>

Dr. Brown: A Look Inside the Weirdness

​It was difficult getting people to talk, even off the record, for this week's feature story on Dr. Michael Brown. His latest defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin, was quoted this week in the Houston Chronicle as saying Brown "is not understood by the public," and he's right -- to a point. Fortuna ... More >>

Gary Robert Watson, Bentley-Driving Alleged Heights-Area Coke Dealer, Goes Down in Target Parking Lot Bust

The Bentley is gone​Up until September 16, Gary Robert Watson was living pretty large. He had the swanky condo in the Sawyer Heights development overlooking the Heights Target. Every day he drove a 2006 Bentley into the garage, and on his thick wrist the giant of a man rocked a $3K Breitling. ... More >>

HPD Sting Snags HBU Cop with Coke

A three-year veteran of the Houston Baptist University police force has been fired and now faces first-degree felony drug charges after the Houston Police Department caught him in a sting operation yesterday. According to the Harris County District Attorney's office, HPD had received a tip that an ... More >>

Cops Raid Northwest Side Barber Shop, Find Stupefying Quantity and Variety of Drugs

This is almost as freaky as Goodfellaz​My oh my the Goodfellaz Master Barber Shop certainly did live up to it's gangster-iffic name, if a court document Hair Balls obtained is to be believed. On August 4, a gang/narcotics investigation culminated with a raid on the North Houston Rosslyn Road ... More >>

Leslie Aikens: HPD Cop Indicted for Drug-Running, Taking Bribe

Leslie Aikens: Allegedly dealing coke​The feds unsealed an indictment today against a 19-year veteran of the Houston police force accused of drug trafficking and taking a $2,000 bribe. Leslie Aikens, 46, was arrested at the end of his shift today. He is charged with aiding and abetting the p ... More >>

Katy ISD Cop Dennis Olivier: Boss, Someone Took The Heroin, Coke, Meth & Weed You Gave Me

No need to lock your truck or anything.​As a K-9 unit cop for Katy ISD, Dennis Olivier tooled around with a white tackle box full of drugs in his squad car. The department-issued narcotics kit was used to train the dog, so that man and dog could do their part in the war on drugs. But in a cr ... More >>

Richard Nutt: Sheriff's Deputy Knew Where To Get The Coke He Allegedly Sold

Photo courtesy HPDRichard Nutt, HCSO vet, charged with dealing coke​Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Richard Nutt, who we're sure has heard all the jokes he cares to about his name, has been arrested and charged with trying to sell two kilos of cocaine. Only a summary of the case is available, ... More >>

Maria Ipina: Valley Cops Say Toddler Caught Peddling Weed Door-to-Door

First rule, kid: Don't take nothing but cash​Even the most grizzled cops in the Rio Grande Valley town of San Juan say this is a new one for them, and that's saying something.They say they have had to remove a four-year-old girl from her home after neighbors complained that the pre-kindergartener ... More >>

Jaime Zamora: That's No City Park Worker, That's (Allegedly) A Murdering Drug-Cartel Kingpin

Breeding ground for drug kingpins​Jaime Zamora had a good, steady job in Houston's Parks Department.What could be more exciting than that?Importing millions of dollars' worth of cocaine and murdering rivals, apparently.Zamora, 40, was sentenced today to more than 27 years in federal prison for dis ... More >>

Nikki Araguz: A Life Examined, With Many Twists Along The Way

Nikki & Thomas fought often in the months before his death​It's going to be a while before the courts sort out whether Thomas Araguz and Nikki Purdue had a legal marriage; and until that happens, the Araguz and Purdue families say they will not be able to properly mourn the fallen Wharton fire ... More >>

Rudy Trace Soliz III: Sweet, Sweet Sex Was Why Border Agent Let Illegals In

Another victim claimed​Just as jury selection was about to begin in his trail late yesterday, Rudy Trace Soliz III, a former Customs and Border Protection, pleaded guilty to alien smuggling and bribery, the U.S. Attorney's office announced today.Soliz, 28, let a female co-conspirator bring illegal ... More >>

Jerome Ponette Wrecks Six Cars After Getting 86'd From Strip Club

Hungover and -- I did WHAT last night?​Wow, helluva night at the strip club for 40-year-old Jerome Ponette. First, he got kicked out of Mirage Cabaret on West 34th Street for allegedly being drunk. Then he got behind the wheel of his Mercedes Benz and went all Mallachi brothers in the parking lot, ... More >>

Undercover Narc Nails Big Bust At Rural High School

​West Columbia is about 45 miles southwest of here; don't feel too bad if you haven't heard of it. The Brazoria County town has about 4,300 residents, 16 of whom are facing drug charges after an undercover operation in the local high school.A school-district cop went undercover at the school in Ja ... More >>

Same Crap, Different County: Another Small Texas Town Overpunishes Another Piddly Drug Offender

Photo courtesy DEAA lot more crack than Melvin Johnson had​Think 35 years for a brick or so of pot is bad?Try this one on for size... In a case one local defense attorney has said showed "shades of Tulia," a Bay City man was sentenced to 60 years in prison for possessing 1.3 grams of crack.Melvin ... More >>

Bayou Body Count: Nudity, Crack Pipes & A Double-Murder-Suicide

The big news this week in Bayou Body Count is the three dead family members League City police are investigating as a possible murder-murder-suicide. Lewis Cantrell Jr. and his wife Gayle Cantrell were found shot to death in their living room on the 2900 block of Chinaberry Park Lane. Lewis Cantrell ... More >>

Cocaine Redux

Another Bump

Ten of the best coke anthems, plus a shortlist for the Cocaine Hall of Fame

Say It with Diamonds?

Not exactly. Circling the diamond industry, Zwick flick tackles nada

Say It With Diamonds?

Not exactly. Circling the diamond industry, Zwick flick tackles nada

CRACKED UP

Gary Webb's reporting on CIA ties to cocaine destroyed his life, too

Half Nelson

Old-school indie turns the inspirational classroom drama inside out

To Each Theron

Juvenile

Reality Check

All He Wanted Was a Pabst

The Nightfly goes out for a quiet Sunday drink and winds up in a Mexican bordello downtown

Best Clown School

Houston Clown School

30footFALL

The Doppler Effect (Opposite Day)

Con's Con

A contained experiment in Medicaid finally gets uncovered

Lost Boys

Judy Walker saw one son die in prison and his twin sentenced to life for shooting a cop. The prison autopsy says Reginald died of natural causes. But his mother says it was retaliation for Robert's actions that got his brother killed.

Tough on Drugs

Prisons are filled with users who pick jail over probation and treatment. Welcome to Round 42 of the war on drugs.

Jimmy's Justice

Years after her son's capital murder verdict, Rachel Moore found evidence that he fired in self-defense. But they're still trying to find a way out of prison.

Local Rotation

Local Music Reviewed

Cop vs. Cop

Police officers don't complain about other officers -- or else.

Bum Deal?

Politics plays an uncertain backup to this "Gimme Shelter"

Letters