CLOSING

Cinco Ranch Branch Library will RE-OPEN on Monday, March 9. 

Cinco Ranch Branch patrons with hold items available for pickup on or before March 6, 2026, currently being held at the Fulshear Branch Library, should visit the Fulshear Branch to pick up those items. If another location is more convenient, please contact the Fulshear Branch Library to have your items rerouted to your preferred pickup location.

 
Any hold requests filled after March 6 will be held at the Cinco Ranch Branch and will be available during its open hours. The pickup location will be indicated on your hold notification.

 

Live: Hispanic Heritage Month: Houston Chicano Squad: Hispanic Murder Investigation Team

Program Type:

Lectures, History/Genealogy

Age Group:

Adult
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Description

Dr. Natalie Garza of the Houston Community College Humanities Department will give a lecture on: The Chicano Squad.

The summer of 1979, detective sergeant Jim Montero floated an idea past HPD chief Harry Caldwell: If he got permission to recruit a small group of Spanish-speaking patrol officers, he could train them to serve as translators in the field, helping the department to close the growing number of unsolved crimes in Houston’s barrios. In addition to having a strong work ethic, Montero said, the officers should hail from the neighborhoods they would be policing. The group cleared forty homicides by the end of 1979 and later earned the recognition of the National Latino Peace Officers, in 1997, when they solved 91 percent of the cases they’d been assigned. During the research process, Moravec found that the Chicano Squad posted a consistently higher clearance rate than other HPD units. The squad did not have a single fatal officer-involved shooting during its three-decade tenure.