Houston's Mayor John Whitmire is gearing up to reveal the lineup of an Independent Review Committee on Wednesday, a move aimed at tackling the mounting scrutiny over the Houston Police Department's (HPD) handling of a mammoth backlog of criminal reports that have sat dormant, according to ABC13. Caught in the hot seat, HPD has been under fire for approximately 264,000 incident reports coded as "suspended" and shelved, dating all the way back to 2016, due to a claimed scarcity of investigative personnel.
Last week, thrust into the spotlight, Whitmire urged for an independent body to peer into HPD's closet full of more than a quarter million reports left in the lurch; some of these including as many as 4,000 sexual assault cases that never saw the light of a detective's desk, as reported by KPRC 2, and despite that swathe of suspensions, not a single report involved children.
"We want transparency, credibility, accountability. Not only how this happened, but you're witnessing what we're doing about it, but what we're doing to prevent it in the future," Mayor Whitmire's words reflect a bid for openness, as ABC13 captured earlier this week. His commitment echoes the sentiments of an outraged public now demanding answers and assurances that such an oversight in justice will not be a repeat episode.
In a recent action, HPD Chief Troy Finner has promised reforms, commenting, "There's never an excuse to not investigate - to make sure the front-end case management system is robust and in place," he added, "We failed in that area. Gonna' tighten it up," Finner admitted the department's snags and has pledged to abandon the controversial suspension code while acknowledging their archaic records system would crash if the code were simply deleted, in a response outlined by ABC13. Currently, the force has mustered about 130 investigators who've scoured beyond 3,000 reports, making their way to 752 homes to close gaps on these long-ignored cases, though efforts are seemingly a drop in the ocean against the staggering number of reports pending review.
As the city holds its breath, today's announcement scheduled for 2 p.m., is expected to carve out the next chapter in HPD's struggle to recover public trust and establish a regimen of effective policy that ensures each report filed is not a ticket to oblivion but a pledge of swift and certain action. Stay tuned as we continue to unravel this story, and more details will be streamed in Mayor Whitmire's news conference on KPRC 2+.
