Houston Police Chief Troy Finner out: Timeline of events surrounding suspended case investigation before HPD chief’s retirement

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — We expect to hear more from Houston Mayor John Whitmire on Wednesday, after HPD Chief Troy Finner abruptly retired not even 24 hours earlier.

Finner’s resignation comes amid an ongoing investigation into the police department’s suspended cases.

At issue was the use of a “Suspended: Lack of Personnel Code” misattributed to cases, some of which involved violent crimes and sexual assault. This means that these reports have not been investigated.

READ MORE: 13 Investigating What Happened Since HPD’s ‘Suspended’ Code Was Identified As A Problem A Ten Years Ago.

ABC13 covered the topic extensively, including what the current former police chief knew about the suspended cases and for how long.

Here’s a timeline of everything we know so far.

2016: “Suspended: lack of staff” code created.

March 2021: Finner has been approved to become Houston’s next police chief. He was handpicked by Mayor Sylvester Turner to replace Art Acevedo, who left to lead the Miami Police Department.

November 2021: That’s when Finner said he told his staff to stop using the code.

February 7, 2024: Finner shared when he learned of the suspension of sexual assault cases due to staffing shortages. A little over a week later, the public learned that there were hundreds of thousands of suspended cases.

End of February 2024: The police assembled a team to investigate. The next day, a memo was sent to stop using the code.

March 6, 2024: Whitmire announced the creation of an independent committee to review the cases. A week later, he named who would sit on that panel.

March 7, 2024: Two HPD deputy chiefs were demoted as the department investigated why 260,000 incidents were suspended due to understaffing since 2016.

April 2024: HPD confirmed to 13 investigators that more than 1,100 reports of adult sexual assault incidents included kits tested for DNA, 76 of which resulted in a CODIS response, meaning the DNA matched a profile already in the database.

May 7, 2024: 13 Investigators discovered a 2018 email referencing a road rage case showing that Finner was aware that the code “understaffed” was being used at the time, which would also be three years before Finner did not claim publicly that he knew about it.

Just weeks after Whitmore was sworn in, ABC13 asked him if Finner would be fired for mishandling records.

“Are you going to fire the chief because of this? No. It’s true – I have confidence in Chief Finner. This is the same chief that a month ago our community praised for being a leader. He’s still a leader, but he can be better,” Whitmire said.

On Wednesday, Whitmire briefly addressed Finner’s resignation during the city council’s weekly meeting.

“I want to thank Chief Finner for his many years of public service. I will probably have more to say in a press briefing about how this happened. But it is my responsibility to ensure safety public to all Houstonians The decision has been made,” Whitmire said at the meeting, adding that he would answer questions later.

Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite will assume the role of interim chief of the Houston Police Department.

MORE: 13 investigations into detailed timeline of what’s happened since HPD’s ‘suspended’ code was identified as a problem a decade ago.