Houston Mayor Says Police Chief Is Absent Amid Investigation into Thousands of Dropped Cases

HOUSTON — Houston’s mayor has accepted the retirement of the city’s police chief as the department investigates why thousands of cases, including sexual assault crimes, were dropped, a a city spokesperson said Wednesday.

Mayor John Whitmire has accepted the retirement of Police Chief Troy Finner, who is stepping down following reports Tuesday that he knew about a code used to drop cases, years before acknowledging its existence.

Whitmire named Deputy Chief Larry Satterwhite as interim chief and will discuss the chief’s retirement at a city council meeting Wednesday, according to spokeswoman Mary Benton.

Finner’s retirement comes as police investigate the dropping of more than 4,000 sexual assault cases that are among more than 264,000 incident reports never investigated due to staffing issues over the years. last eight years.

Finner, who joined the Houston Police Department in 1990 and became chief in 2021, announced the investigation in March after it was revealed that officers were assigning an internal code to unsubmitted cases that cited a lack of available personnel.

Finner then apologized, saying he ordered agents to stop in November 2021 after first discovering that agents were using the code to justify dropping cases. Despite this, he said, he learned on February 7 of this year that this system was still being used to close a significant number of adult sexual assault cases.

On Tuesday, several Houston TV stations reported that Finner was included and responded to an email in 2018 referencing the suspended cases.

Finner released a statement to X saying he didn’t remember the email until he was shown a copy on Tuesday. “I have always been honest and have never sought to deceive anyone about anything,” Finner wrote.

“Even though the phrase ‘suspended staff shortage’ appeared in the 2018 email, nothing alerted me to its existence as a code or how it was being enforced within the department,” she said. writes Finner.