Houston mayor says police chief is out amid probe into thousands of dropped cases

The politician of Houston says the city's constabulary main has retired

HOUSTON -- The politician of Houston has accepted the status of the city's constabulary main arsenic the section investigates wherefore thousands of cases including sexual assault crimes were dropped, a metropolis spokesperson said Wednesday.

Mayor John Whitmire accepted the status of Police Chief Troy Finner, who is stepping distant pursuing reports Tuesday that helium was alert of a codification utilized to driblet the cases, years earlier acknowledging its existence.

Whitmire appointed adjunct Chief Larry Satterwhite arsenic acting main and volition sermon the chief's status during a City Council gathering Wednesday, according to spokesperson Mary Benton.

Finner's status comes arsenic constabulary analyse the dropping of much 4,000 intersexual battle cases that are among much than 264,000 incidental reports ne'er submitted for probe owed to staffing issues during the past 8 years.

Finner, who joined the Houston constabulary section successful 1990 and became main successful 2021, announced the probe successful March aft revealing that officers were assigning an interior codification to the unsubmitted cases that cited a deficiency of unit available.

Finner apologized astatine that point, saying helium had ordered officers to halt successful November 2021 aft uncovering retired for the archetypal clip that officers had been utilizing the codification to warrant dropping cases. Despite this, helium said, helium learned connected Feb. 7 of this twelvemonth that it was inactive being utilized to disregard a important fig of big intersexual battle cases.

On Tuesday, respective Houston TV stations reported that Finner was included and responded to an email successful 2018 referring to the suspended cases.

Finner posted a connection connected X saying helium did not retrieve that email until helium was shown a transcript of it connected Tuesday. “I person ever been truthful and person ne'er acceptable retired to mislead anyone astir anything,” Finner wrote.

“Even though the operation ‘suspended deficiency of personnel’ was included successful the 2018 email, determination was thing that alerted maine to its beingness arsenic a codification oregon however it was applied wrong the department,” Finner wrote.