STATE & NATIONAL: Today, a report from the city of Houston police department provides information surrounding the status with HPD of long time Houston community advocate and 3 year police chief, Finner. This week, Houston Mayor, John Whitmire, received the response by Chief Finner following a review by an independent review board citing a long list of unresolved criminal cases. By Anne M Erbynstein In 20211, as exiting police chief, Art Acevedo stepped down, the, then, Mayor of Houston, Syvester Turner, selected Troy Finner to step in as the next police chief. Finner was eyed as a primary choice for Houston having served as the department's assistant chief. Last month, an investigation was conducted involving the HPD suspended cases records. according to the report, the investigation turned up 264,000 cases that had been codified as suspended. It had become a matter of controversy--the prospective case load that classified hundreds of thousands of cases that had been backlogged under the code claiming "suspended-lack of personnel." As a result of the events that developed surrounding the 264.0k subdued cases, Mayor Whitmire moved forward with an investigation conducted by an external oversight committee. The Mayor 's claims involved Finner in what the city referred to as a "scandal." The scandal surrounded a case filed 6 years ago involving a hit and run claim. According to the investigation, then HPD Executive Assistant, Finner, received an email citing complaints made that the investigation of the case had not been suitably conducted. within a matter of time and without any apparent effort made to resolve the care, the matter was classified and tagged. "suspended- lack of personnel." The report made recently by investigators does not significantly clarify that the suspended case was classified during the authority of Chief Acevedo, 2018. Acevedo resigned his HPD post in 2018 and, according to information uncovered, the former HPD Chief of Police took on a position in Florida with a local police department. The investigation was clear on the fact that, as he emerged as Chief of police with HPD, Finner was uninformed of the codification method and had for some time, took on responsibility for the HPD vice squad. On May 1st, the IPOD or Independent Police Oversight Board reviewed the matter involving Chief Troy Finner. In response to the review, Finner indicated that he will proceed with making every effort at resolving the cases and replying to the public in regard to the HPD findings. In the course of the review, Finner has been criticized by the PHOU; Houston police union. President of the PHOU, Doug Griffith claims that Finner was informed of the codification in 2018. Despite the fact stated by Finner that he was, at that time, unfamiliar with the function involving the coded files, Griffith pursued a rather punitive path of stating that the Houston Police Chief was not holding himself accountable while stating his expectation of his staff's accountability for their responsible performance in regard to the suspended cases. During the review conducted this week, Chief Finner stated that he uncovered 4,017 sex crime cases, other vehicular criminal cases been added during the course of his post with HPD. The number of cases rose, Finner reported to the review board, and were situated among as many as 260,000 cases he , later, discovered that had been classified as suspended--lack of personnel. Finner stated that the high volume of cases had remained suspended during a time period prior to his becoming police chief. Finner spoke with the Special Victims Division in November, 2021 during such time he stated that it was in 2021 that he firsts learned about the codification and, at that time, informed the SVD that the codification method should not be utilized any further. Houston police chief Finner reported during the review that 260,000 cases had been perused by his department and that among the more than 4000 rape cases, 100 had been filed with DNA hits and the department has succeeded in filing 54 charges. While the review remains ongoing, any decision involving Chief Troy Finner's future with HPD has not been determined.
Comments