{"id":353392,"date":"2026-06-28T12:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/353392\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T12:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:09:08","slug":"houston-worker-on-mission-to-stop-constable-deputies-illegal-parking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/353392\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston worker on mission to stop constable deputies’ illegal parking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boone Watkins has a simple request: Can\u2019t Harris County leaders stop Precinct 1 deputy constables<\/a> from parking in no parking zones downtown?<\/p>\n

The downtown oil and gas worker first emailed county leadership about the issue last fall. As months passed without action, Watkins started including photos of the offending patrol cars, and expanded the scope of his dispatches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His email list now includes representatives from each of the county commissioners, several constable offices, the sheriff and even some Houston city leaders.<\/p>\n

The habit sets a bad example for the many downtown workers who have to pay to park, Watkins said, and it\u2019s embarrassing county leaders haven\u2019t done anything about it despite eight months and more than a dozen emails, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour staff at 1001 Preston continues parking illegally and blocking access,\u201d Watkins wrote in January to county administrators, having spotted Precinct 1 patrol cars parked illegally at the county building. \u201cIs this not something you have the ability to address?\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen did not respond to a request for comment about Watkins\u2019 emails. Officials with the office of county administration declined to comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaw enforcement offices are independently elected and are not part of our staff,\u201d one county staffer told Watkins in an unnamed January message from a general county administration email address. \u201cFor questions regarding their offices, please contact them directly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder if the employees of 1001 Preston ignore reports of illegal activities of all their staff, or only illegal activities committed by the police?\u201d he wrote on June 2. \u201cEither way the lack of accountability is a sad reflection of local government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Constable deputies may not be acting illegally by leaving their cruisers in no parking zones, said Jay\u00a0Coons, a Sam Houston State University criminology professor, as Texas law lets emergency vehicles park in places other vehicles cannot.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a poor practice,\u00a0Coons said, noting that many agencies prohibit their officers from parking in off-limits spots when they\u2019re not responding to an emergency.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarris County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies are directed to park legally when coming downtown for routine business (or anywhere else, at least in my day) and, if they receive a citation, it\u2019s on the individual deputy to pay it,\u201d said\u00a0Coons, who retired as a captain at the sheriff\u2019s office in 2018.<\/p>\n

Greg\u00a0Fremin, a former captain at the Houston Police Department who also retired in 2018, agreed that it was a bad look for deputies to be parking improperly outside of an emergency.<\/p>\n

Watkins, he said, should file a formal complaint with Rosen\u2019s office over the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boone Watkins has a simple request: Can\u2019t Harris County leaders stop Precinct 1 deputy constables from parking in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-353392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}