Chief Says Houston Police Are Trying to Get in Touch With Victims of Sexual Attack After 4,017 Cases Were Put on Hold

The acting police chief of Houston said on Wednesday that the continuation of a “bad” policy that let officers drop more than 264,000 cases, including more than 4,000 sexual assault cases and at least two murder cases, was due to leaders not talking to each other well enough.

In 2016, the Houston City Council was told that the code was meant to keep track of why each case was dropped, such as because an arrest had been made, there were no leads, or there weren’t enough police officers. Instead, cops who didn’t get orders from above used the code SL, which stands for “Suspended-Lack of Personnel,” to explain why they shouldn’t look into any crime, even if there was violence involved.

When police were looking into a robbery and sexual assault in September 2023, they found that crime scene DNA linked their suspect to a sexual attack the previous year, even though the case had been dropped, Satterwhite said.

That led to a review, which showed that from 2016 to February 2024, 264,371 cases were dropped. That’s when Finner gave what Satterwhite called the first department-wide order to stop using the code. Four,017 cases of sexual assault and two murders were put on hold, Satterwhite said. One person was knowingly hit by a car, and the other was a passenger who was killed when a driver crashed while fleeing police.

A report from the department released on Wednesday said that 20 people have been arrested and charged in connection with sexual attack cases, which make up 79% of the more than 9,000 special victims cases that had been put on hold. Satterwhite said that police are still trying to get in touch with all of the victims of the cases that were dropped.

Mayor John Whitmire fired Chief Troy Finner in March and Satterwhite took his place. Finner has said that he told his command staff to stop using the code in November 2021. However, Satterwhite said that “no one below that executive staff meeting” knew about it. He called this “a failure in our department.”

Satterwhite said, “There was no follow-up, there was no checking in, and there was no looking back to see what action is going on.” These actions could have shown how bad the problem was faster.

Finner didn’t answer the phone when called at the number given, but he recently told the Houston Chronicle that he feels bad that he didn’t understand how many cases were dropped sooner. He said that everyone in charge of the department, including himself, was so busy and the use of the code was so common that no one in charge realized how serious the problem was.

Satterwhite said that the department used a process called “triage” to sort cases and handle the most “solvable” ones first. He said that new rules mean violent crimes can’t be dropped without being looked over by higher-ups and that sexual attack cases can’t be dropped without three reviews by the leadership.

Satterwhite said that when the code was put into use, all sections were taught how to use it, but no standard operating procedure was made.

“No rules or guardrails were in place.” “I think people thought you would never use it for certain situations, but because it wasn’t in the policy, it was used in situations we shouldn’t have,” Satterwhite said.

It was those years that the mayor was in charge of a key state Senate committee. He said that the numbers shocked him.

Whitmire said, “As the chairman of criminal justice, I can’t believe no one brought it to my attention.” “No one thought there would be so many cases.”

A spokesperson for the department, Satterwhite, said that no one has been punished. “I’m not ready to say that anyone did anything bad.”

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