 On July 11, 1998, Houston Police Department officers acting on a tip regarding drug related activities entered a Gulfton apartment complex and shot and killed Pedro Oregon Navarro. The circumstances of the event were disputed. By October 19 of that year a Harris County grand jury cleared the officers of charges related to the incident. Nestor Rodriguez, a professor of sociology at the University of Houston, described Gulfton as "a place where people are just struggling to get by." Consequently, there were fewer "displays of outrage" than would have been expected if the incident had occurred in one of the "older, well-established Latino communities." Oregon's killing was controversial because illicit drugs were not found on the property. Oregon's family sued the City of Houston arguing that the raid was inappropriate. The city countered that its officers acted in an appropriate manner. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2000.
