HOUSTON – One day after newly-elected Houston Mayor John Whitmire ordered an independent review of Houston Police Chief Troy Finner and his staff’s handling of more than 200,000 suspended criminal cases, the department’s top cop addressed the community’s concerns.
At a news conference Thursday, Finner spoke to reporters about the suspended cases, which include thousands of sexual assault cases.
He started with an apology to the impacted victims, family of the victims, and others who’ve experienced violent crimes against them, stating they did not deserve this.
Finner said the code indicating a case is suspended due to lack of personnel should have never been used and will never be used again.
On Feb. 22, Finner announced the internal review that revealed at least 4,017 sexual assault cases were suspended under the code. Those cases will be the Houston Police Department’s top priority, according to Finner.
Here’s what HPD has done so far since the internal review:
- Dozens of investigators and officers have been assigned to review incident reports and contact victims.
- 3,010 sexual assault cases have been reviewed and officers have attempted to contact those victims and schedule follow-up interviews.
- 133 interviews have been scheduled so far.
- The department has also focused on family violence incident reports.
- Since Feb. 29, more than 100 officers have attempted to locate victims of adult crimes and family violence cases at their last known address.
- 698 visits have been made to locate victims in these suspended cases.
- Victims are asked to email HPD’s special victim’s report to prioritize their case.
Finner said during the review process of adult crime incident reports, his department found that 254,000 incidents have been filed since 2016.
Investigators will be assigned to label and code those 264,000 incidents because a number have been mislabeled or have incorrect titles. This will help the department prioritize and better organize those cases.
Finner said the department will not investigate every incident filed if there is not enough sufficient evidence. For example, if there was a car theft and no surveillance video or evidence exists. He stated that just because an incident was filed, doesn’t mean a crime was committed. HPD also found some individuals have filed several incident reports in connection with the same crime.
Finner did say that the department does not have the staffing to investigate every incident but that violent crimes against a person will be prioritized.
This story will be updated shortly.
WHAT HAPPENED
KPRC 2 Investigative reporter Mario Diaz has been on top of this story since the day it all unfolded on Feb. 16, when Finner released a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. In the statement, Finner said he assigned a team of investigators to review a “significant” number of sexual assault cases that he learned had been suspended due to “lack of personnel.”
After pressing the Houston Police Department, Finner and Mayor Whitmire for answers, KPRC 2′s Mario Diaz uncovered that more than 4,000 sexual assault cases, dating back to 2015, had been suspended.
Also, despite Finner’s original social media post saying he had just learned about the suspended cases, the top cop later admitted to knowing about the cases since 2021.
“It’s a dark day,” he said. “In 34 years, I’ve been through a lot, we’ve been through a lot. I don’t want to say it’s the darkest day, we’ve had dark days here, OK, it’s another. All departments, if you’ve been around enough time, they’re going to go through different things.”
Then, three days later, the department announced approximately 264,000 cases, approximately 10% of all of the department’s cases over the last eight years, had been suspended across multiple HPD divisions.
The five criminal divisions included special victims, gangs, family violence, auto thefts and vehicular crimes.
Mayor Whitmire, who was in support of Finner despite learning of the suspended cases, released a statement saying he was holding HPD accountable and was waiting on a full report and transparency from HPD Chief Finner over “years and years” of cases being suspended.
“It goes right along with my concern during the campaign about public safety, and the previous administration and others said, ‘Oh we’re headed in the right direction, we’re doing fine.’ Well, hell I guess so if you’re not reporting stuff or you’re not investigating them,” said Mayor Whitmire.
A few days later, Mayor Whitmire ordered the independent investigation.
It’s not clear who will conduct the investigation, but KPRC 2 Investigates will continue to follow the story and bring you the latest developments.