HOUSTON – Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said officers have reviewed about 3,100 sexual assault reports that were suspended due to lack of personnel. None of the cases involved children.
“We found zero incidents or reports involving a kid or a child, using this code,” he said.
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Houston Mayor John Whitmire and Finner held a news conference Monday and met with officers reviewing about 264,000 criminal reports that were suspended in the past years.
“We will not rest until each and every incident report has been reviewed by (police)…that is the first major step to review the incident reports, see if it reaches the elements that would open a case,” Whitmire said.
Finner previously mentioned that about 4,000 sexual assault reports in the city have not been investigated. We learned today that the Houston police department doesn’t have a specific sexual assault team to deal with these types of cases.
“We’re gonna get through this challenge and we’re gonna sit down as we go forward and have an HPD sexual response team,” Mayor Whitmire said. “It’ll be their highest priority. They’ll be trained and sensitive to respond to incident reports in a real-time situation.”
Houston Area Women’s Center President and CEO Emilee Dawn Whitehurst and Deputy CEO Sonia Corrales also spoke during the conference. They tell us they’re also looking at ways to fund a sexual assault response team within the HPD.
HPD has dedicated more than 100 officers at five different locations in the city to help review these incidents.
Finner said as police review the reports, they first have to determine if it is a crime and then contact survivors.
Whitmire also discussed how important HAWC is, and he said HPD needs additional resources.