SignalHub-Houston police chief retires amid investigation into 264K suspended incident reports

Houston's police chief abruptly retired Wednesday amid an investigation into hundreds of thousands of criminal incident reports,SignalHub including more than 4,000 sexual assault cases, that were dropped due to a lack of personnel.

The retirement of Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner was announced Wednesday by Mayor John Whitmire during a city council meeting. The mayor said Finner, who joined the police department in 1990 and had served as chief since 2021, chose to retire after discussions with Whitmire on Tuesday.

"I consider Troy Finner a friend. It was tough to accept his retirement, but it was in the best interest of Houstonians," Whitmire said during a news conference Wednesday. "The investigation had become disruptive to the department."

The police department has been under scrutiny since February when an internal review revealed that about 264,000 criminal incident reports since 2016 were suspended because a "lack of personnel" code was assigned to them. The incident reports included violent crimes, sexual assault, and property crimes.

In April, Finner said the police department had made progressreviewing the reports and that the internal investigation into the "lack of personnel" code was completed. Whitmire said Wednesday that an independent review panel, which was launched by the mayor in March, will share its findings next week.

Whitmire has appointed Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite as acting chief of police.

"This decision comes with full confidence in Acting Chief Satterwhite's abilities to lead and uphold the high standards of our department. I ask everyone to extend their full cooperation and support to Acting Chief Satterwhite during this transitional period," Whitmire said in a statement.

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Retirement follows reports chief knew about suspension code in 2018

The announcement followed local television reports Tuesday that showed Finner knew about the controversial policy after receiving an internal email regarding a hit-and-run case that was suspended in 2018, three years before he claimed he was aware of the code.

At a March news conference, Finner apologized to the public and said he first learned about the code in November 2021. At that time, Finner said he told officers the policy was "unacceptable and (to) never use it again."

He added that he discovered in February that the code was still being used to suspend a significant number of adult sexual assault cases. An internal investigation was then launched, which revealed that the policy was being used in other divisions of the department.

In a statement released Tuesday, Finner said he had no recollection of the 2018 email and that he remains "committed to providing as full an accounting of the internal investigation as legally allowed, once it is complete." He reiterated that he did not know about the code or how it was applied within the department, despite it being referenced in the email.

“I have always been truthful and have never set out to mislead anyone about anything, including this investigation," Finner said. "I promised an independent and thorough investigation and my lack of knowledge of this email serves as proof of my independence."

Houston police reviewing suspended reports

The internal code has been used department-wide since 2016, according to Finner. Over the past eight years, he said more than 4,000 adult sex crime incident reports were filed and dropped because of the code.

Others suspended were 109,000 reports filed with the major assault division and 91,000 in property and financial crimes, Finner said in March. More than 6,500 reports filed with the homicide division were also dismissed, but most of those were related to claims of assaults and threats before 2018, according to Finner.

Last month, Finner said investigators and officers have been reviewing about 10,000 reports per week. As of April 30, over 107,000 reports had been reviewed and nearly 50,000 "fit the criteria for being closed, cleared, inactivated or suspended," Finner said in a statement.

He noted that all of the adult sex crime incident reports were reviewed and concluded that a majority of the reports were closed or cleared. "We have scheduled forensic interviews with 427 complainants/survivors and have conducted 1,765 location checks at last known addresses of complainants," Finner added.

A total of 54 charges have been filed against 45 suspects as of April 30, according to Finner. Most were charged with misdemeanors, while other suspects were charged with felonies.