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Presser: HPD on 264,000 suspended cases review
Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner and other leaders give an update on the ongoing internal review regarding the 264,000 suspended cases coded with "lack of personnel."
HOUSTON - Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner gave new details on the ongoing investigation into their suspended incident reports.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Finner stated of the 264,000 suspended cases, 81,000 have been reviewed in these past 6 weeks and 26,000 of those should have been suspended but were suspended with the wrong code.
Out of 807 family violence incidents, all of them have been reviewed with five new charges being filed as a result.
As of Thursday morning, Finner reports of the 4,017 adult sex crime incidents suspended, 3,948 have been reviewed with 3,079 cases being inactivated due to unworkable leads because HPD has taken investigation as far as it can.
HPD met with the Houston Forensic Science Center (HFSC) and Harris County District Attorney's Office to request a second level of review on March 27.
RELATED: Houston Police Department suspension of rape investigations despite DNA evidence drawing fire
Finner said the department initially asked to prioritize the 4,017 adult sex assault incident reports but then asked them to look at the remaining special victim's incident reports. The Houston Forensic Science Center reviewed the 5,085 incident reports assigned to the Adult Sex Crime Units which were mostly indecent assault and exposure incidents.
It was discovered there were 220 additional sexual assault incident reports not captured due to title.
"As we said, we would do a thorough review and work our way through each and every incident. Again, 264,000 incidents. Some people may look at this as negative, I don't," said Finner. "It is a fact and it's evidence that our process is working.
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According to HPD Commander Elizabeth Lorenzana, of the 4,017 reports HFSC put through the CODIS database, 1,147 adult sex crime incident reports had sexual assault kits tested for DNA. Lorenzana stated the DNA evidence of 291 of those incident reports was uploaded to the database, resulting in 76 CODIS hits.
Authorities report, that 51 of those cases have complainants who don’t want to move forward, a suspect was already charged, or contacting the complainant was unsuccessful and officers are being sent to further check-in.
Of the additional 5,085 incident reports assigned to the special victim's division with the suspended lack of personnel code, HFSC found 57 sexual assault kits were uploaded to the CODIS database with 19 hits being found.
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One of the initially reported 96 CODIS finds was a duplicate bringing the total CODIS hits to 95, including the initial 4,017 reports and the additional 5,085.
"A lot of what we’re going through is not acceptable," Finner shared when questioned by media during the press conference.
In the most troubling revelation, Chief Finner announced on Tuesday at least 96 rape allegations were never investigated despite the presence in each case of DNA evidence linking the sexual assaults to a previously arrested suspect.
A former HPD Sergeant wrote a 2021 letter, explaining how the "lack of personnel" code might give the public the wrong impression depending on how it is used and why it was created in the first place in 2016.
Chief Finner offered other significant updates to media partners saying the "initial internal investigation" is expected to be down by the end of April and 67,533 of the 264,000 un-investigated incidents have been re-visited by officers, with some charges being filed so far.