Voters Say Kim Ogg Is Responsible For Rising Murders In Harris County
An 8-year-old boy beaten to death outside his apartment. A 5-year-old child whose remains were found in a plastic tote bag. A 72-year-old woman who was shot, dismembered and packed into a box. These are Houston murder victims profiled by Houston’s KPRC, which put a face to the more than 456 homicide victims in the city this year.
Those are shocking numbers, and a near doubling of murders relative to just two years ago. And they have Harris County officials pointing the finger at each other over who is responsible for the rise.
No one has done more finger pointing than Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg. Ogg, who is Houston’s top prosecutor, has repeatedly blamed rising murders on anything and everything from Harris County commissioners to local judges to modest reforms that no longer require people accused of most minor crimes to post cash bail in order to be released from jail. Even a comprehensive report from federal court-appointed experts finding “no evidence that bail reform has led to an increase in homicides,” didn’t stop Kim Ogg from peddling her conspiracy theories.
Yet, when searching for a villain for rising murders, a new poll of Harris County voters suggests that Kim Ogg should look in the mirror.
By 12 percentage points, voters are more likely to say that Kim Ogg is responsible (than not responsible) for increased murders in Houston and Harris County. Fewer than one in five voters said that Ogg was “not at all” responsible for the murder spike, a stunning lack of confidence in Harris County’s top law enforcement official that is a consistent finding regardless of race, gender, and partisanship.
To ensure maximal fairness to District Attorney Ogg, participants were asked the same question a second time, but given more context, including Kim Ogg’s theory that murders is “increasing because of bail reform and activist judges who release criminals back into the community.” But the results are roughly the same either way the question is asked (Net responsible +11):
These poll results reflect the reality that it’s Kim Ogg’s head-scratching choices that are driving the increased murders in Houston by clogging the courts with extremely low-level cases and causing a major backlog to trials for serious crimes like murder.
According to the Houston Chronicle, “The number of pending cases has grown to 94,000 in Harris County, including 41,000 misdemeanors and 53,000 felonies, according to county data. Closures from Hurricane Harvey in 2017 spurred the backlog and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 worsened it, overloading judges and attorneys with cases they can’t clear fast enough.”
Ogg could clear the case backlog by dismissing thousands of nonviolent and low-level crimes. But she won’t. Instead, she demanded that the County Commission massively increase her budget so that she could hire more prosecutors, making it easier to throw more people in jail for crimes of poverty and addiction.
Ogg is clearly desperate to pass the buck. Earlier this year, the District Attorney, a former Republican, even teamed up with Republican state legislators in an effort to pass regressive legislation.
Meanwhile, the Harris County Commission is taking concrete steps to reduce the court backlog and do its part to get the county’s criminal justice system back on track. The commissioners even approved an $11 million investment to pilot a new program that targets gun violence and murders across Harris County.
We reached out to Ogg for comment but haven’t gotten a response.
Polling Methodology:
Our poll of 422 Harris County likely voters was conducted on the Data For Progress infrastructure, and the sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is +/- 5 percentage points.