Panel to review suspended police reports
Houston group to ‘look over their shoulder’
HOUSTON – Mayor John Whitmire has picked five people to run an independent investigation into the Houston Police Department’s handling of more than 264,000 suspended incident reports.
The committee will be led by a former state representative with a long history of advocacy for victims of sexual assault, a Texas Ranger, a local church leader and two city employees.
“I’ve asked them to collect the data, review HPD, look over their shoulder, make sure the process is transparent and report back to me,” Whitmire said. “I will report back to Houstonians and let them know exactly … how in the world this existed for eight years without someone having the good sense to sound the alarm.”
Last month, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner announced that the department was launching an internal investigation into more than 4,000 reported sexual assaults that had been designated as “SL” – suspended due to a lack of personnel in the department’s record management system. The review quickly grew to include more than 264,000 cases across multiple police divisions dating back to 2016.
The committee investigating the Police Department will be chaired by former state Rep. Ellen Cohen, who was a Houston City Council member from 2012 until 2020. While on the council, she championed the effort to eliminate the sexual assault kit backlog. Before becoming an elected official, she was the president and CEO of the Houston Area Women’s Center, an organization that provides services to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
“Victim survivors are the ones that need to be addressed,” Cohen said, adding that part of the role of the committee would be to ensure that police “are in fact talking to these survivors.”
The committee will also include Texas Rangers Capt. Jeff Owles, a 21-year law enforcement officer who Whitmire said would bring “investigative tools” to the group, and the Rev. T. Leon Preston II, pastor of Yale Street Baptist Church since 2009.
“(Preston) is an outspoken voice from the community who will assure that no one is forgotten in this review,” Whitmire said.
The two city employees on the committee are Christina Nowak, the deputy inspector general of the Office of Policing Reform and Accountability, and City Attorney Arturo G. Michel.
Nowak has already begun collecting data from the police on behalf of the committee, Whitmire said. And Michel was put on the committee to give legal advice and “make sure everything is done in compliance with city laws,” Whitmire said.
“I want Houstonians to know that we are doing everything possible to reveal to them the full extent, the circumstances, and who knew what and when,” Whitmire said.
Whitmire criticized anti-crime efforts started by his predecessor, Sylvester Turner, and said the suspended police reports reveal that previous claims about crime data in Houston were “spin” based on flawed data.
Last October, the Police Department reported a reduction in violent crime after several years of increased violence that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, police reported an increase in other crimes, including car thefts.
“We’ve been shown that crime rates are going in the right direction, and I think we have the right to question the validity of it,” Whitmire said. “I would believe that if you’re not following up on incident reports, that become cases, that become convictions, it could very easily impact your crime rate. But I think we need to leave that to the investigation.”
Finner has said he will stop citing the department’s clearance numbers in light of the review of suspended cases, but it is unclear how those cases might have affected the department’s reporting on violent crime or other issues.
Whitmire said most of the committee’s work will not be done in public meetings, but that the group will hold some kind of public discussion. The committee won’t have the power to take depositions or issues subpoenas, he said. Rather, its job is to collect data and validate the Police Department’s own investigation.
There’s no timeline for the committee to complete its work, Whitmire said. Finner has said his department’s internal review could take months.