CitizensNet

April 30, 2024

Update from Police Chief Troy Finner on Suspended "Lack of Personnel" Reports

The Internal Affairs investigation into how and when the suspended – “lack of personnel” code came about, and how and when it was brought to my attention has been completed. As is customary at the conclusion of internal investigations into possible misconduct, the investigation file will now be reviewed by members of the Independent Police Oversight Board (IPOB) and the Administration Disciplinary Committee (ADC).

(For more information on IPOB and ADC, go to https://www.houstontx.gov/boards/ipob.html).

Following their review and recommendations, I will update our community at a news conference soon, within the next two weeks. At that time, we will release any investigation documents - allowed by law - to our media partners and the public via our department website.

We continue to make progress reviewing the 264,000 department-wide incident reports suspended with a code of “lack of personnel” dating back to 2016. Our investigators and officers have been reviewing about 10,000 reports per week. As of today, a total of 107,094 incident reports have been reviewed. Almost half of them, 49,939, fit the criteria for being closed, cleared, inactivated or suspended. Most involve reports with no leads.

As mentioned in our last update, all 4,017 adult sex crime incident reports have been reviewed. We have determined that most of them, 3,501, fit the criteria for being closed, cleared, inactivated or suspended. We have scheduled forensic interviews with 427 complainants/survivors and have conducted 1,765 location checks at last known addresses of complainants.

As I have stated throughout the review process, any incident will be reopened should a complainant contact us and provide additional information or evidence.

Investigations are ongoing in 94 reports with DNA profiles collected that resulted in profile matches (hits) with individuals in the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). We determined that 14 of those CODIS hits match profiles of 14 suspects currently incarcerated for separate crimes. Our follow-up investigations are underway on those individuals. It is important to note that CODIS profile matches are evidence, but not necessarily proof an individual committed a crime.

Through this review process, investigators have had a total of 54 charges filed on 45 suspects. Most are charged with misdemeanors (33), while others are charged with felonies (21) such as aggravated assault.

We will not stop working until all 264,000 reports have been properly reviewed. Our priorities have not changed. We are focusing on crimes against persons reports and with providing trauma-informed services to sexual assault survivors and family violence complainants.

We continue to provide any and all access requested by the Independent Review Committee appointed by Mayor John Whitmire to oversee the review process.

I look forward to providing further updates to our community soon.

Troy Finner
Chief of Police

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