Tarrant County Precinct 7 is vowing to send serial squatters to jail.
The new approach no longer treats squatters as tenants incapable of paying their rent but as criminals who never intended to. The precinct’s deputy constables are no longer focused on evicting people — they are arresting them, CBS News Texas reported.
Det. Scott Powell told CBS that serial squatters, who move from house to house, are known to commit identity theft and use fake documents to support their claims.
“I have yet to see a squatter case that didn’t involve some form of identity theft,” he said.
Powell highlighted the case of alleged squatter Shawndria Allen Graves, who he claimed has repeatedly used different names.
“We have a Carrol Marantette that’s filed paperwork, a Tia Johnson that’s filed paperwork, Maria Johnson that’s filed paperwork,” said Powell, referring to the various names used by Graves, per CBS.
Powell evicted Graves from a home in January only to find her allegedly squatting in another house in March. A month later, she was back at the first house.
“This is her second time at this address. There’s no way you’re going to get me to believe that after evicting her the first time, somebody turned around and leased it back to her,” said Constable Sandra Lee, per CBS.
Powell said Precinct 7 has handled 40 “John Doe” evictions this year, explaining that a criminal element is providing fake documents and information on which houses to use.
“A lot of the reason it’s exploded is they’ve realized they can do this,” said Powell, per CBS. “These squatters are rarely getting prosecuted.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, squatting has become a serious issue in many American cities. The Texas Legislature is working on creating substantial criminal penalties for squatting and assisting law enforcement officers with evicting squatters.
Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) said in an interview with WFAA that there were probably 1,000 squatting cases in Houston alone and as many as 10,000 cases across the state. He said the problem is that squatting is not technically a crime in Texas, as there is no definition for squatters in the Texas Code.
“This is a big, undiscussed problem. Because once a squatter gets in, you could use neutron weapons — you won’t have much of the building left — to get rid of them. I mean, it’s really horror stories,” Bettencourt told WFAA.
But that may no longer be the case in Tarrant County Precinct 7.
“If you illegally squat in Precinct 7, you will go to jail,” Powell said, according to CBS.
