Photo: Alex Bierens de Haan / Getty Images News / Getty Images
Houston Mayor John Whitmire wants an independent review of the 264,000 cases HPD has suspended since 2016 over a lack of personnel.
"I trust and believe Police Chief Troy Finner is doing the best he can to manage the internal investigation, get to the bottom of it, and hold people accountable," said Mayor Whitmire. "The independent panel will be people I also trust to review and validate the outcome and help bring closure to the victims,” Whitmire said.
This comes three weeks after Chief Finner went public with 4,017 adult sex assault cases that had been cleared due to this issue. An investigation was launched, which revealed that hundreds of thousands of other crimes across all departments were involved.
Finner admitted knowing that there was an issue in 2021, and then demoted two assistant chiefs when the problem was not taken care of.
The Chief had also said he would address all of this in a news conference last week, but never held one.