HOUSTON – Houstonians got a look at Houston Police Acting Chief Larry Satterwhite on Wednesday. The 34-year veteran of HPD was elevated after serving as one of former chief Troy Finner’s right-hand men as an Executive Assistant Chief.
“I can only tell you what I remember,” Satterwhite told KPRC 2 Investigates Mario Diaz, as he pressed about the use of the “SL” suspended code utilized more than 260,000 times.
“Certainly I believe it was on the agenda and I remember something about it, I just don’t remember enough about it,” he added.
Satterwhite is talking about the November 2021 meeting where Finner first claimed he learned criminal incident reports were being suspended using the “SL” code. Satterwhite told KPRC 2 he briefly attended the meeting. Then he left for a security walkthrough of Astroworld at NRG Park.
“So it was very obvious that we had a problem, I think going into the end of last year,” Satterwhite explained.
A couple of minutes later he said, “I want to say it’s actually towards the end of 2023, early 24 in January you know, I had a lot of things going on, it still was not my focus.”
Shortly after that, the acting chief said it was the “End of last year, beginning of the year this year that we really started looking hard at it and I started really getting made fully aware of what is going on.”
Three times the acting chief told the room, and Houstonians watching at home about when he first learned of the controversial code. While he claims he heard about the incident reports being suspended by the end of 2023, Satterwhite struggled to recall the period he called an obvious problem.
“Maybe it was January maybe it was February. That’s the problem here is that I’m trying to struggle on exactly when, and what, and what it was I actually might have heard or not, and so I don’t want it to sound like, I just don’t know,” Satterwhite told us.
Diaz followed up by asking, “I understand chief, but when you tell us and you’re talking to Houstonians live on television right now and you say that you were aware of this code being used last year and then we ask you the question again and you come back and say, ‘Well I think I heard,’ ‘I’m not so sure,’ we just went through this the last three months?”
The acting chief told him, “Right, no, and I don’t want to be, going back through that where you are getting misinformation, I really, like I said I, I want to say that maybe something, that I heard something and maybe it was on a specific case or something like that toward the end of the year or the beginning of the year, I just simply don’t know.”
KPRC 2 Investigates wanted to know why it wasn’t escalated to then-chief Troy Finner.
“I don’t know. Like I said, I didn’t, I’m at that point where I guess I didn’t register, I’m going on recall right now,” Satterwhite said.
Apologizing for any confusion, Satterwhite expressed remorse, saying, “I am sorry, it’s not like I knew that we were suspending cases and doing all these things you know for lack of manpower on sexual assaults, I didn’t know any of those things.”
Both Satterwhite and Mayor John Whitmire say they plan to be transparent while the investigation into the suspended incident reports continues.
A big question surrounding the investigation is the game-changing Hatcher letter KPRC 2 Investigates first told you about last Friday. While HPD looks to conclude the IAD investigation into her role in dealing with the suspended cases, the mayor hopes to release a public report immediately afterward.