x
Skip Navigation
Breaking News
More () »
Harris County

Acting HPD Chief Larry Satterwhite presents findings on controversial 'suspended - lack of personnel' code

The code led to more than 260,000 incident reports being suspended.

More Videos

Next up in 5

Example video title will go here for this video

HOUSTON — The Houston Police Department released their final report on the controversial "suspended – lack of personnel" code on Wednesday morning.

Acting Houston Police Department Chief Larry Satterwhite went before City Council to present the origin and cause of the "suspended – lack of personnel" code. It was a code provided in police reports when there were no detectives available to investigate the case.

KHOU 11 News has received a copy of the final report and we are combing through the findings to shed light on what the investigation found. You can view the full report further below in this story.

Key findings from HPD's final report on suspended cases for lack of personnel

There are eight key findings on the code, according to the report.  \They are as follows.

  1. The code was created in the Records Management System (RMS) in March of 2016 to “quantify cases not being investigated due to a lack of staffing.” The code came two years after then-chief Charles McClelland Jr. asked Houston City Council for more resources to address staffing shortages.
  2. Between when the code was created and when the issue was discovered, the code had been used in 264,371 incidents. More than 98% of the cases were for incidents that happened since January 1, 2018.
  3. The current Records Management System used by the Houston Police Department is “antiquated, non-intuitive, and lacks modern features.”
  4. The lack of a governance structure for the RMS, combined with transfers, retirements, and weak protocols led to a limited understanding of how it works.  The report does say that HPD expanded the role of the Office of Planning to include overseeing data. The report says this structure change has helped in the investigation into the code.
  5. In 2016, all HPD investigative divisions were trained to use the new ‘suspended – lack of personnel’ code. The Special Victims and Major Assaults & Family Violence Divisions included the code in their Standard Operating Procedures.
  6. HPD failed to establish guidelines on when the ‘suspended – lack of personnel’ code should be used. The report said that each division determined its own policies on how and when the code was used with no guidelines.
  7. Based on the volume of cases that HPD deals with, certain cases would need to be prioritized. The report noted that person-on-person crimes with workable leads are the department’s biggest priorities. HPD reports statistics to the FBI monthly. The report notes that 25% of the crimes committed in Houston are violent.
  8. The Houston Police Department remains understaffed and cannot investigate all crimes. The report noted that HPD’s investigative capacity hasn’t significantly changed since a 2014 study.  Included in the review of the ‘suspended – lack of personnel’ code, the department is looking at how cases are prioritized.

Full final report from HPD on suspended cases for lack of personnel

Here is the full report released on Wednesday morning from HPD.

This comes more than two months after a committee put together by Houston Mayor John Whitmire released its preliminary report on the code.

That committee found that the origin of the code dates back to 2014 when HPD was working on its Report Management System, or RMS. The department was creating new labels and codes as a way to organize statistical reporting from different divisions. Its use was approved in early 2016. Then by April of 2016, it was being used by the Special Victims Division and spread from there.

Satterwhite is also expected to discuss steps HPD plans to take to make sure the code isn't used again.

At a February 22 press conference, now-former HPD Chief Troy Finner announced that there could be more than 4,000 sex crime cases that were never investigated because they were assigned the code.

In the time after Whitmire assembled the committee, Finner reported all of the sex crime cases with the code were reviewed. He said about 100 of them had DNA hits. He also said the more than 260,000 incident reports with the code had no leads, however, 54 of them resulted in criminal charges as of early May.

According to previous KHOU 11 reporting, Finner said he first learned about the code in late 2021 and instructed officers to stop using it. But in May, an email from 2018 surfaced. In that email, Finner directed an officer to further investigate a case that had been assigned the code. Hours after KHOU 11 Investigates' Jeremy Rogalski reported on the email, Finner resigned. Satterwhite would later be appointed interim chief.

In a recent interview with the Houston Chronicle, Finner said he was forced out, calling it an attempt to bury the scandal surrounding the code. Finner told the Chronicle that while he was chief, there was transparency and regular updates into the investigation about the code. Whitmire responded in a statement, saying in part, "I can't say what motivated him to make such allegations, but I'm personally disappointed he has."

RELATED: Former Houston Police Chief Troy Finner says he was forced out of job, Houston Chronicle report says

Below is past KHOU 11 coverage of the code.

Background of 'lack of personnel' code

Before You Leave, Check This Out