HOUSTON – “I’d like to promise you it’s all gonna be better now, I’m going to try to make it better, and then we’ll see.”
Houston’s Interim Police Chief Larry Satterwhite stepped into the role of his good friend Tuesday night around 10:30, with a sense of honor and loss.
“It’s hard. It’s hard. Troy’s a friend,” Satterwhite said in his first news conference as the department’s leader.
He and former Chief Troy Finner went through the academy together 34 years ago and have remained friends.
“He did do everyone he could, I think to help,” Satterwhite said, acknowledging Finner’s time as chief.
“I’ve known him for 34 years and I think this is killing him.”
Finner retired abruptly Tuesday evening after KPRC 2 Investigates reported an email they’d obtained showed the chief could have known about the coding being used to suspend cases as far back as 2018.
Mayor John Whitmire said Wednesday morning it “made me sick” to accept Finner’s retirement, but also acknowledged the investigation had become too much of a distraction and disruptive to the morale and work of the department.
CHANGING FOCUS
Satterwhite, who was promoted to Executive Chief by Finner in 2021, said all his years with the city’s SWAT team, working with Homeland Security and most recently leading Field Operations -- all of those positions have been focused outward, or externally. With the looming investigation and morale challenges, he now has to turn his attention more inward.
“Much of my role or responsibility was responding to you when you called for help. When you, when we have a problem in the community or on our roadways with any kind of road rage or anything like that,” Satterwhite said. For the last three years, he oversaw more than half of the department with more than 3,000 officers under his command. That included divisions like the airports, traffic enforcement and the department’s mental health division.
“I am honored to be in this role right now, however it occurred, because I’m so proud of the men and women that I get to work with every day. . .and it’s you all, the public, who support us.” Satterwhite said he’s traveled the world and brags everywhere he goes “because the support we have here in the community is second to none.”
HPD’s mission to protect the public has not changed Satterwhite said, adding the number one focus for Houston police should be fighting crime. Morale has suffered during the investigation, he said.
“So it’s a challenge. We have fantastic men and women are out there and they’re trying very hard to respond to calls, do investigations. And there’s a lot of good work being done. But for me to sit here, stand here and tell you this hasn’t impacted their morale, to say it hasn’t impacted their efforts out there because no one likes this. And everybody, you know, we all take pride in our work. And this is hard.”
Satterwhite didn’t outline his plans for boosting morale but did say he, like Finner, would like to add another 2,000 officers to the force and realizes that could take time. “I don’t want to sound greedy, but I’d take more if I could get them.”
INVESTIGATION INTO 264,000 SUSPENDED CRIMINAL CASES
Satterwhite was grilled in the news conference about what he knew about the suspended cases coding, when he knew it and whether he alerted Finner.
He said repeatedly that he doesn’t remember exactly, but thinks it was either the end of last year or the beginning of this year.
“I remember something about it, but nailing it down to a specific conversation on cases that were suspended due to lack of manpower, which is what we’re talking about. I’m struggling to go there and remember all of that, so I don’t really have a good answer for you,” Satterwhite said. He said he really wasn’t looped into investigations and hadn’t conducted one himself since the 1990s because most of his career has been spent on the operational side.
Satterwhite said he is still learning a lot about the investigation and that 264,000 cases is a “massive” amount to go through and at the same time, the department has to balance what’s happening in Houston’s communities.
“And we have a lot of bad actors out there that are doing bad things and we need to bring them to justice, too. So we have to do both. So it’s massive,” he said.
Satterwhite said he is hoping to brief the public on where things stand with the investigation soon, but couldn’t say when.
“We as an agency and a department, on this one, failed,” he said.
Satterwhite was asked what he will do if he finds out any of his command staff knew about the coding being used over the past several years.
“So it just depends. There’s so much more to that on in terms of, you know, what exactly how was it presented? I mean, I’m trying to be fair to everybody. So to tell you exactly if I find this out, boom, that’s the deal. I can’t tell you that right now. I have to look at everything objectively and make sure that I’m affording everybody the same rights and consideration that I would for, you know, everybody that’s been in my command and field operations.”
TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT POSITION?
Satterwhite said he thinks he would be honored to take on the role of Houston’s Police Chief in a permanent capacity, but added he is also a realist.
“And historically, if you look around the nation, when we have when an agency goes through something like this, there’s a strong desire to bring somebody in from the outside, quite honestly, somebody that you’re not asking, ‘Were you ever part of this?’ because they couldn’t be. They weren’t even here.”