Homicide rate in Houston down 20 percent last month

Looks like as long as you can keep from winning the lotto, you can also keep from getting killed. Last month, the city recorded only 24 homicides, down 20 percent from January 2006.

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said that he attributes the decline to HPD's heavy targeting of several hot spots in the city, but indicated that the cold weather might have had something to do with the decline as well. Hurtt hopes to continue the downward trend for the rest of the year with the same methods:

It's been due to a lot of work that we've done in the last year with the overtime and focusing on hot spots throughout the city. People that have been arrested (and are) not out on the street anymore.

Mayor White asked HPD to phase down their overtime spending, another factor that has contributed to the decline in the homicide rate. Of the $18 billion that HPD was allotted from the federal money Houston was given after Katrina, about $6 million is left on the books for overtime pay.