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

Houston mayor replaced city police chief as investigations continue into why hundreds of thousands of cases were never investigated, including more than 4,000 allegations of sexual assault.

“I have accepted the retirement of Troy Finner as police chief,” Whitmire said briefly at the start of Wednesday’s City Council meeting, thanking him “for his many years of public service.”

Whitmire, who took office in January, had expressed confidence in Finner after the chief revealed the large number of uninvestigated cases in February and said he first learned of the problem in November. But that seemed to evaporate quickly after Houston television stations reported Tuesday that Finner had been informed in a 2018 email.

Whitmire said he pledged during his mayoral campaign to keep Finner as police chief and described him as a friend, “but you have to make tough decisions.”

“Ultimately, the department is distracted because of investigative issues…from its primary mission, which is to fight crime,” Whitmire said. He named Deputy Chief Larry Satterwhite as interim chief.

Several city councilors expressed gratitude to Finner, who joined the Houston Police Department in 1990 and became chief in 2021. City Councilwoman Carolyn Evans-Shabazz said she already misses him.

“His commitment to our city has been unwavering,” Evans-Shabazz said. “His efforts contributed significantly to the safety and well-being of our community.”

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 ever investigated. Finner apologized in March after revealing that officers were assigning an internal code to unsubmitted cases that cited a lack of available staff. Whitmire also launched a review by an independent committee.

Finner said 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.

After several Houston television stations reported that Finner had been included in and responded to a 2018 email referencing the suspended cases, Finner released a statement to X saying he did not remember that 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. “Although the phrase “suspended staff shortage” appeared in the 2018 email, nothing alerted me to its existence as a code or how it was enforced within the department.

The Houston Area Women’s Center, Houston’s largest nonprofit supporting victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, did not immediately respond to messages for comment. But in a social media post in February, the organization said sexual assault survivors “pay a high price” when investigations are not clearly resolved.

“For a survivor, finding the courage to come forward and report their attack, then wait and have their case suspended can add immeasurable trauma. …we are facing a system failure in the nation’s fourth largest city,” the message said.

Police departments across the country are facing an urgent staffing crisis as many younger officers resign and older officers retire, according to a report released in August by the Police Executive Research Forum. Applications to fill vacancies have fallen amid a national reckoning over how police respond to minorities.

An April 27 report from the same Washington-based think tank found more encouraging numbers.

“Small and medium agencies now have more sworn officers than in January 2020,” according to the forum report. “In large agencies, sworn staff increased slightly during 2023, but they remain more than 5% lower than they were in January 2020.”

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