Community leaders and civil rights advocates are speaking out after a major change inside the Houston Police Department that they say could impact trust between officers and the public.
Several groups are raising concerns after they say Mayor John Whitmire abruptly announced the closure of HPD’s decades-old Community Affairs Division — a unit designed to serve as a bridge between police and the communities they serve.
Community members say the decision came without notice and at a time when the department is already facing mounting scrutiny.
That includes fallout from the department’s backlog of more than 254,000 suspended or uninvestigated cases, as well as new concerns tied to how local officers interact with federal immigration authorities.
HPD’s Community Affairs Division has historically played a key role in building relationships across Houston neighborhoods.
The unit focuses on outreach efforts like attending civic meetings, working with community groups, organizing youth programs, and helping communicate information between residents and law enforcement.
For many residents, those face-to-face interactions are critical.
Mark Rodriguez, president of the Oaklawn Fullerton Civic Association in Houston’s East End, says his neighborhood has already felt the shift.
“Last night at the community meeting, we had about 25 residents there. Nobody from HPD showed up,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez shared an email he received in October from an HPD commander stating that officers would no longer attend neighborhood meetings and instead encouraged residents to go to police substation meetings.
“And I said that’s kind of hard to drag our community up to the substation to be able to hear HPD out,” Rodriguez said. “They need to involve themselves in our community.”
The issue is also drawing attention from civil rights groups, who are connecting the division’s closure to broader concerns about immigration enforcement.
Civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen argues that recent actions involving immigration warrants raise constitutional questions.
He points to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says officers cannot detain someone during a traffic stop without reasonable suspicion of a crime.
According to Kallinen, an administrative immigration warrant alone does not meet that standard.
Groups including LULAC, We the People Organize, and the Houston chapter of the National Lawyers Guild held a press conference at Houston City Council on Tuesday and called on the mayor to reinstate the division.
During a recent news conference on March 11, Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz suggested community engagement efforts are still a priority.
“It’s incredibly busy and incredibly important to us to make sure that we’re focused,” Diaz said. “So community affairs didn’t go away, it’s a hundred percent better. It’s on steroids.”
However, some city leaders say they were unaware of any issues with the division in the first place.
“I didn’t know it was broken, so I don’t know why it needs to be fixed,” said Councilwoman Dr. Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, who represents District D. “This city is too large to not have a community affairs division… I certainly support the reinstatement of that.”
As of now, it remains unclear what led to the decision to shut down or restructure the division.
Re’Chelle Turner reached out to both HPD and the mayor’s office for clarification on the move and whether the division is being eliminated or replaced with a different approach.
As of publication, those questions remain unanswered.