The August HPOU Investigator of the Month award went to Officer Kamesha Baker of the Adult Sex Crimes Unit of the Special Victims Division.
The Union presented the honor at the August general membership meeting. Baker’s work was detailed at the presentation event, thusly:
Last July Baker began a multi-month investigation on a serial exposer case in which the suspect would drive a silver Honda Accord and approachhis young victims as they walked down the street. He would lower his car windows and visor to hide his face and then masturbate in front of these victims. Baker investigated six cases involving victims ranging in age from 12 to 19.
A crime analysis in the Special Victims Division tied these cases together and, fortunately, in one case a 12-year-old juvenile complainant used a cell phone to photograph the license plate of the perpetrator.
The investigation found that the vehicle was registered to a “prison entrepreneurship program” in Houston and that it was a pool vehicle used by numerous people. Vice Division officers sat up on the vehicle, which was not used for a period of time. A poll cam was set up for monitoring purposes.
After several months of monitoring, the vehicle was used in a case where the driver exposed himself to a 12-year-old girl.
“In this case,” the citation honoring Baker said, “the complainant’s mother showe dup shortly after the suspect exposed himself to her daughter and she drove around the area when her daughter observed the suspect vehicle.”
The mother confronted the suspect and took pictures of his vehicle as he fled the scene. The video footage from the poll cam identified the suspect.
Baker and a vice officer went to the prison entrepreneurship program, identified the suspect by name and presented a photo array to the 12-year-old child’s mother, who positively identified the suspect. He was a case worker in the program.
Baker filed three felony charges of Indecency with a Child. The Vice Division officers arrested the suspecte without incident.
Sgt. Robert Ambuehl of the Special Victims Division recognized the investigation as “a team effort” but especially cited Baker for countless hours of hard work.
The post Work of Special Victims Officer Baker removes serial exposer from the streets of Houston appeared first on Houston Police Officers Union.
