Houston’s police chief apologized to victims and their families Thursday after an internal review revealed that about 264,000 criminal incident reports were suspended in the past eight years due to a lack of personnel.

In February, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner announced that hundreds of thousands of incident reports were dropped because a "lack of personnel" code was assigned to them. The number of reports — which included violent crimes, sexual assault, and property crimes — represents about 10% of the 2.8 million incident reports filed in the past eight years.

"I apologize to victims, their families, our citizens, for the use of the code for sexual assault incidents and other violent crimes against persons," Finner said at a Thursday news conference. "This is not the trauma-informed, victim-centric services they deserve. Again, this code should have never been used and never will be used again."

According to Finner, the internal code had been used department-wide since it was established in 2016, years before Finner became police chief in April 2021. Finner vowed to rebuild the public's trust in the department and outlined new procedures, such as assigning additional investigators to review reports and conducting follow-up interviews with victims.

The chief's news conference came just a day after newly-elected Mayor John Whitmire ordered an independent review of the city police department's handling of the cases.

"I am deeply concerned about how and why this happened," Whitmire said in a statement Wednesday. "The public wants answers and accountability. This process of appointing an independent panel will validate the investigation's integrity."

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Houston Police chief was aware of code in 2021

Finner said he first learned about the internal code, which was part of the department’s record management system, in November 2021. At that time, Finner said he told officers that the code was "unacceptable and (to) never use it again."

But then Finner discovered last month that the code was still being used to suspend a significant number of adult sexual assault cases. An internal investigation was launched and uncovered that the code was being used in other divisions of the department.

Two high-ranking members of the department have already been demoted over their roles in the matter, according to Finner. The investigation is also reviewing why the order to stop using the code was not followed and how the code’s use first came about, Finner said.

Police department prioritizing sexual assault cases

Since 2016, Finner said more than 4,000 adult sex crime incident reports were filed and dismissed because of the code. "Those reports are our top priority," he added.

An additional 32 investigators and supervisors have been assigned to review those reports, contact victims, and conduct follow-up interviews, according to Finner. Of the more than 4,000 reports, Finner said over 3,000 have been reviewed with an attempt to contact the victim by phone, text or email.

"Our investigators have scheduled 133 interviews thus far with victims," Finner said.

Police have also been working to contact people who filed family violence incident reports and about 100 officers have been sent out since last week to attempt to locate the victims. Nearly 700 visits were made as of Thursday morning, according to Finner.

Other reports that were suspended were 109,000 reports filed with the major assault division and 91,000 in property and financial crimes, Finner said. More than 6,500 reports filed with the homicide division were also dropped, but most of those were related to claims of assaults and threats before 2018, according to Finner.

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Police departments face staffing shortages across U.S.

According to a 2023 U.S. Department of Justice report, police departments across the country are struggling with a "historic crisis in recruiting and retaining" officers as a result of a tight labor market during the pandemic and community frustrations.

Recent reports from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a Washington-based think tank, show that agencies are losing officers faster than they can hire new ones.

"Many agencies attribute the bulk of their recruitment and retention challenges to a combination of souring public perceptions of the policing profession, generational shifts in the values and expectations of younger workers, and changes in police roles and responsibilities," PERF said in its August 2023 report.

Between 2020 and 2022, 65% of police agencies reported an increase in retirements and 66% reported an increase in resignations, according to the report. And officer staffing levels have dropped, falling by nearly 5% between 2020 and 2023.

Applications for open positions also remain vacant, with 69% of agencies seeing a drop in the number of applications for full-time officer positions between 2020 and 2022, the report states.

The Houston Police Department is one of many agencies facing staffing issues. According to Finner, the department, which has about 5,200 officers, needs 2,000 more to be sufficiently staffed. But he added that was not an excuse for the dismissal of the hundreds of thousands of reports. 

Contributing: Bart Jansen, USA TODAY; The Associated Press