Police Chief Troy Finner announced his retirement amid a growing scandal involving suspended criminal cases. Houston Mayor John Whitmire broke the news of Finner's exit through an email to city employees, a copy of which was snatched up by FOX 26 late Tuesday night. In the wake of Finner's departure, Whitmire appointed Larry Satterwhite as Acting Chief of Police, effective 10:31 p.m.

Finner's abrupt retreat from the Houston Police Department's helm follows months of internal investigations into the department's suspicious use of an internal code, “SL,” to mark cases as suspended. An email from 2018 unearthed Tuesday, showed Finner, then the Executive Assistant Chief over Patrol Operations, participated in a conversation about a road rage case marked with the "lack of personnel" code despite existing leads.

In a seemingly contradictory twist, Finner has previously claimed he never knew about the mysterious code until 2021. The embattled former chief attempted to clarify the confusion in a statement posted by the department on Tuesday at 6:02 p.m., stating, "I have always been truthful and have never set out to mislead anyone about anything, including this investigation," the Houston Chronicle reports.

Nonetheless, the Houston Police Department's review of the suspended cases has resulted in the filing of 54 charges and roughly two dozen arrests, as Finner himself announced before his resignation came to light. Despite Finner's retirement, which concluded his 31-year tenure with the department, the mystery surrounding the suspended cases and the department's transparency appears to be far from over.