HOUSTON - Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo had tough words for the monitoring device that was supposed to keep Jose Rodriguez out of trouble.
"Look at what these ankle monitors mean, absolutely nothing. They cut them off and then we have three dead people," Acevedo said.
Rodriguez was out on parole and wearing an ankle bracelet. On July 5, parole officers got a notification it had been tampered with, but it kept transmitting. Then on July 8, the ankle monitor's battery died.
That's when parole officers believe Rodriguez cut it off, and a warrant was issued.
Investigators told us they believe his crime spree started the next day and continued for the next week until he was arrested today.
"The problem is from my perspective, it's not TDCJ, it's Texas law enforcement. We're not making it enough of a priority. I'm not passing the buck, maybe we're not doing enough in the Houston Police Department...but you know what? We're done," Acevedo said.
The chief says there are 18,000 parolees in Harris County, 600 of them are considered high risk. He wants to start a task force to track them more seriously.
Ironically, just Monday the chief announced the arrest of close to 100 parole violators in a major operation. However, Rodriguez, a man now suspected in three murders, wasn't one of them.