HOUSTON — Thousands of criminal incident reports never stood a chance of being investigated by Houston Police and instead were shelved because of a lack of manpower on the same day they were reported, according to a KHOU 11 analysis of newly-released data.
HPD released a database Thursday of more than a quarter million incident reports that were labeled “suspended—lack of personnel.” They include violent and property crimes ranging from assaults, sex crimes, burglaries and robberies.
The records list more than 265,000 incidents, including about 4,000 duplicate cases, that were suspended since 2018.
At the top of that list was assault, with about 50,000 incidents suspended for lack of personnel, followed by 40,000 hit and runs, according to the KHOU 11 analysis. Records indicate many may have had workable leads, like more than 11,000 hit-and-run cases which listed a “full (license) plate and able to ID suspect.”
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“Those are cases that we should have been working from the beginning,” said Houston Police union president Doug Griffith. “Because we can find out who owns that and find out what the address is and find out who’s driving it, we can run that down pretty easily.”
Along with assaults and hit and runs, terroristic threats, theft and burglaries rounded out the list of top 5 suspended incidents.
Crime Type and Incidents
- ASSAULT: 50,359
- HIT AND RUN: 40,474
- TERRORISTIC THREAT: 39,102
- THEFT: 37,175
- BURGLARY: 20,467
Griffith said it’s time to be honest with the public about realistically investigating suspended cases, especially when it comes to property crimes.
“Because we can’t keep up with the cases we get today, so how are we going to go back eight years and be able to find anything that’s going to be useable,” Griffith said.
Further down the list was family violence with 4,084 incidents, homicides with 2,301 investigations suspended and sexual assaults with 1,534 incidents suspended. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said Thursday that overall, 4,017 adult sex crime incident reports were filed with that code since 2016.
Records reveal more than 7,300 incidents were labeled with the “SL-suspended lack of personnel” code the same day the incidents were first reported to Houston Police. Those cases that went nowhere from the get-go include nearly 2,000 hit-and-run incidents and more than 800 assaults. Overall, KHOU 11 Investigates found on average, incidents were suspended 58 days after they were reported.
Finner said he banned the controversial code back in 2021, but HPD’s own records show its use ballooned under Finner’s watch, from 40,000 incidents in 2021 to more than 67,000 last year.
Year and Incidents Suspended
- 2018: 32,260
- 2019: 37,882
- 2020: 34,808
- 2021: 40,620
- 2022: 42,266
- 2023: 67,688
- 2024: 10,127
Finner said an internal investigation is underway to learn why his order wasn’t carried out by command staff for the past few years. At a press conference Feb. 22, the chief said the code “will not be used again in my administration.”
But since that announcement, HPD data show it still was used dozens of times.