HOUSTON – Houston Mayor John Whitmire made it clear Wednesday to KPRC 2 Investigates that he believes in Houston Police Chief Troy Finner.
The comments come a week after his police chief revealed to Houstonians that 4,000 sex assault investigations and more than 260,000 investigations department-wide were discreetly dismissed due to a lack of manpower.
When asked specifically if the Mayor still has faith in his chief, Whitmire responded, “Yes”.
The new mayor said he has concerns over what he has learned from Chief Finner during the past week.
“It’s alarming that for years now, HPD has handled serious investigation by just saying, we’re not going to get to them for lack of staffing,” said Mayor Whitmire.
KPRC 2 Investigates Mario Diaz pressed more asking what defense there is to allow something like this to happen.
“Well, it’s an ongoing investigation, we got to get to the bottom of it. See how broad it is, it’s growing daily,” the mayor said.
In a news conference last week, Chief Finner admitted he knew about sexual assault investigations being dismissed in November 2021.
He then revealed that he did not start investigating the practice of cases being suspended for lack of manpower until earlier this month.
The news caught the city and department by surprise.
Whitmire made it clear that the crime stats were not being accurately portrayed during the previous administration and that he would be different from Houstonians.
“We’re not going to play games with people by telling them, ‘Oh don’t worry crime is heading in the right direction,” it’s not, it’s only because they have suspended thousands, hundreds of thousands of cases and not leveled with the public,” said Mayor Whitmire.
When told his statement comes off as “One Safe Houston is really One Unsafe Houston” in a play of the Turner Administration’s crime-fighting initiative, Mayor Whitmire without hesitation said, “Absolutely.”
Chief Finner announced earlier this week he plans on having another news conference about the cases.
His communication staff tells us the chief should have a breakdown of the cases at the presser.
The date and time for that news conference have not been released.
When it does, KPRC 2 Investigates Mario Diaz will be there, and we will stream it on the KPRC 2 platforms.