none of that summer killing spree that
had Houston on edge three people killed
in three days the main suspect a
convicted rapist who was out on parole
investigators say Jose Alberto Rodriguez
cut off his ankle monitor before this
crime spree sending an alert to
authorities
well since July Channel 2 investigates
has been asking what steps law
enforcement took to track him down and
tonight we have answers investigator
opport Arnold has the timeline and he's
explaining changes coming to parolee
supervision over the years the
complainant had one gunshot wound to the
chest thousands of criminals one had me
love my hair with the gun on have walked
out of prison under an old law some of
Houston's most notorious killers have
been released on mandatory supervision
that law was meant to alleviate prison
overcrowding by allowing felons even
violent ones to a cruise so called good
time every day they behaved in prison
they got to knock a day off the time
they were required to stay in prison
before the state had no choice but to
release them on parole it's something
Crime Stoppers and econ is monitored for
decades we've seen a time of time again
we were mandatory mandatory mandatory
after seeing inmates serve only
fractions of their sentences the
legislature banned the practice for
violent felons in 1995 but could not
make the change retroactively so you
have those offenders who timing is
everything in life the county's archive
keeps watch over the details of crimes a
lot of people have forgotten about but
thousands of violent felons were
sentenced under that old law which means
the implications will continue
reverberating through the decades I just
felt like my heart had
which I knew it'd vid five years ago
channel two investigates showed you some
of the violent criminals released under
mandatory supervision this issue was
brought back to the forefront in July
this man is extremely dangerous
that's what investigators say Jose
Gilberto Rodriguez went on a crime spree
across the city that included robbery
three murders and attempted murder I
just can't believe it
Rodriguez went to prison in the early
90s for auto theft burglary and rape he
was released under mandatory supervision
less than a year ago his release came
with several restrictions including
tracking his whereabouts through a GPS
monitor mr. Rodriguez really had shown
himself to be a fairly model parolee the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
says jeremy diesel says rodriguez
complied with his parole conditions
until July 5th that's when a parole
officer got an alert that he tampered
with his GPS monitor we all first got
the tamper alert well it appears that
there was some level of human error TDCJ
policy requires a parole officer to have
a face-to-face meeting with a parolee
within 24 hours of receiving a tampering
alert did that happen
it doesn't appear that it did in fact a
warrant for Rodriguez's arrest wasn't
issued until three days later a day
before police say he began his crime
spree he emphasized to you that the
parole officer and her supervisor had
both been fired chair of the criminal
justice committee state senator john
Whitmire believes what happened with
Rodriguez was an isolated lapse in the
overall system is strict and effective
the tragedy the Rodriguez case
breakdown still this Houston police
chief art acevedo believes a more can be
done to get wanted parolees off the
streets faster holding the feet to the
fire and holding the calm parole
notifies law enforcement when a warrant
is issued because parole officers don't
have authority to arrest but Acevedo
says those notices don't indicate which
cases should be treated with urgency he
says he's meeting with parole officials
to talk about possible changes to see
how they can help us help them
Acevedo says he'll discuss creating a
regional task force to try to track down
parolees like Rodriguez who run senator
wittmeyer says he would like to see a
statewide approach he could read more
about those ideas under the investigates
section of click2houston.com robert
arnold KPRC Channel 2 News