Houston Mayor Addresses Police Chief’s Abrupt Retirement Amid Departmental Probe

According to the mayor’s office, Houston’s police chief abruptly left the force Tuesday night amid concerns about a department procedure that allowed hundreds of thousands of cases, including sexual abuse accusations, to be suspended. Troy Finner had been the chief of the Houston Police Department since 2021, closing off a 34-year tenure with the agency.

“I consider Troy Finner a buddy. “It was difficult to accept his retirement, but it was in the best interests of Houstonians,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said at an impromptu news conference Wednesday.

The retirement announcement came hours after an internal email acquired by CNN affiliate KHOU revealed Finner referring to an inquiry being suspended due to a “lack of personnel” in 2018, three years before he claimed to be aware of the policy.

Finner was the executive assistant chief of patrol operations at the time the email was written.

At a February news conference, Finner stated that he was unaware of the practice until 2021 when he directed the department’s Special Victims Division to stop utilizing the “lack of personnel” code to delay investigations.

Finner stated in April that the police department has made headway on evaluating approximately 264,000 investigations that had been suspended since 2016, citing solely a lack of personnel. More than 4,000 of these cases included claims of adult sex crimes. An independent review committee is also examining.

Finner stated in a statement made Tuesday night, following the KHOU report, “I have always been truthful and have never set out to mislead anyone about anything, including this investigation.” Despite the fact that the email cited the “suspended lack of personnel” codes used by Houston police at the time, the outgoing chief stated that he was unaware of them.

Finner vowed in his statement to “address the media and the public” once the probe was completed. Later that night, the mayor notified the city council that Finner was retiring.

Whitmire appointed Larry Satterwhite as interim police chief on Wednesday. Satterwhite served as Finner’s executive assistant chief. The mayor declined to reveal whether he had requested Finner to retire. “It was impacting HPD operations. “That is the bottom line,” Whitmire told reporters Wednesday. “I dealt with it because it was a distraction to the mission of the men and women in HPD.”

Finner did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the police department had not publicly declared the change in command.