Mayor John Whitmire announces retirement of Houston Police Chief Troy Finner amid suspended cases scandal

HOUSTON – Houston Police Chief Troy Finner is stepping down as chief of the department.

In an email sent by Houston Mayor John Whitmire to members of the department, Whitmire announced he has accepted Finner’s retirement.

Whitmire has appointed Larry Satterwhite as acting chief.

Finner, a Houston native, had been Chief of HPD for a little over three years.

The news comes after the department said 264,000 incident reports, including more than 4,000 sexual assault reports, were suspended due to a “lack of personnel.” Those reports date back to 2016.

Finner said he knew about the cases being suspended back in 2021 and mandated that it stop being used.

However, an internal document KPRC 2 Investigates obtained shows Chief Finner was looped in about the code being used by HPD in cases as far back as 2018.

“It’s something that I didn’t know about and I definitely didn’t remember that,” Finner told KPRC 2 Investigates Mario Diaz when he showed the chief the email at a luncheon Tuesday.

• HPD Internal Affairs Investigation into suspended cases not “completed” after Chief Finner told Houstonians it was done

In the email dated July 20, 2018, Finner states “this is unacceptable, look into it and follow up with me.”

That was his response to the email sent by George Mixon, the former Chief of Staff to Art Acevedo, to the executive staff, which included Acevado, Finner, and Commander Kevin Deese.

KPRC 2 Investigates Mario Diaz took the documented 2018 email to Chief Finner while at a luncheon. Finner told him multiple times, “The email is out of context.”

“Now if I go back and look at all your emails over a 10-year period or whatever the period is do you think that you will leave something out? Do you think that you will leave something out? Do you think that there is an intent? There is untruthfulness and there is intent. Did anybody try to perceive or misrepresent anything? No.”

• Questions of trust focused on HPD over chief’s ‘my IAD investigation’ comments

Late Tuesday afternoon, the chief posted a lengthy statement on social media about the 2018 email:

An investigation by the department’s Internal Affairs Division is in its final stages.

During the review of that investigation, new questions came up about the integrity of a member of Finner’s inner circle who officially asked for the investigation to be launched into the use of “suspended - lack of personnel” coding that essentially pushed cases aside rather than proceed with investigations.

Mayor Whitmire’s independent panel is set to review the Internal Affairs investigation and make recommendations based on the findings.

Chief Finner had promised to brief Houstonians on the findings, but it’s unclear right now if that will happen.

This story is developing. KPRC 2 Investigates will have more beginning Wednesday morning.