Houston police chief Troy Finner has retired as an investigation into more than 260,000 incident reports, including more than 4,000 sexual assault cases, since 2016 that were not investigated continues.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire announced Finner’s departure Wednesday, emphasizing that the former police chief was not forced out but that the investigation appeared to interfere with police work.
“The current investigations into suspended cases had become such a distraction that I was convinced the department had lost some of its focus to address the hotspots and response times,” Whitmire said. “I could go through a list of things that I think were being interrupted because of the time spent and the new revelations in those investigations.”
All of the about 264,000 incident reports were marked “suspended – lack of personnel,” and the mayor previously expressed confidence in Finner.
Whitmire said recent news reports detailing an email Finner received and responded to in 2018 about a road rage incident that used the suspended code was the “last straw.” It showed Finner was aware of the code prior to November 2021, the date he said he learned of it and ordered officers to stop using the code.
Finner responded to the reports by saying he “never set out to mislead anyone on anything” and “had no recollection of it.”
“Even though the phrase ‘suspended lack of personnel’ was included in this 2018 email, there is nothing that alerted me to its existence as a code or how it was applied within the department,” he said in a statement.
Finner did not directly address his sudden retirement in a post on X but did acknowledge that recent months have been “challenging yet most rewarding.”
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A few city council members and the mayor supported Finner despite his deception — one placed blame on former police chief Art Acevedo, and another said they would have a hard time remembering an email from 2018 either.
Whitmire appointed assistant chief Larry Satterwhite as acting chief.