HPD chief says investigation completed into code that led to 264K cases suspended

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The Houston Police Department's Chief Troy Finner said its internal affairs finished its investigation into how and when the "lack of personnel" code came about. The investigation also looked into how and when it was brought to Finner's attention.

The video above is from a previous report.

The findings will now go to the Independent Police Oversight Board and a disciplinary committee. Finner said he will update the community about the review and recommendations in the next two weeks, adding they still have more than half of the incident reports to review.

The use of the code led to the suspension of more than a quarter million cases, stirring concerns within the community and the victims in certain cases.

In a statement, Finner said that almost half of the cases reviewed fit the criteria to be cleared, closed, or suspended, with the majority of them not having any leads. In some cases, specifically sex crimes, investigators said they had leads at the time. But years later, they said they don't.

"We continue to make progress reviewing the 264,000 department-wide incident reports suspended with a code of 'lack of personnel' dating back to 2016. Our investigators and officers have been reviewing about 10,000 reports per week. As of today, a total of 107,094 incident reports have been reviewed. Almost half of them, 49,939, fit the criteria for being closed, cleared, inactivated, or suspended. Most involve reports with no leads," Finner wrote.

Through the review process, Finner said that investigators had 54 charges filed on 45 suspects. Most are charged with misdemeanors, while others are charged with felonies such as aggravated assault.

"We will not stop working until all 264,000 reports have been properly reviewed. Our priorities have not changed," Finner stated.

While criminal charges are public information, HPD hasn't been transparent with ABC13 and is refusing to provide specifics related to the charges. 13 Investigates has filed several open records requests.

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