HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s independent committee, tasked with reviewing the Houston Police Department’s suspended incident report scandal, released its long-awaited report.
This five-person committee, comprised of former and current state and city officials and leaders, was assembled in early March and has met almost weekly.
On Wednesday, they presented a nearly 100-page document detailing what went wrong and how they think it should be fixed. The committee’s 17 recommendations show that HPD needs major overhauls in its operations. It just doesn’t say how those overhauls will be implemented.
“We do have a great city and great people, but we do face challenges,” Whitmire said.
ABC13 was told that a combination of these factors led to a quarter million incident reports being suspended.
To prevent a similar scandal, the committee said communication between divisions and training for newly appointed leaders needs to improve.
The committee chair, Ellen Cohen, said they found instances where people were promoted to positions they had no knowledge of and given no instruction on how to fill that role.
“It’s not just the hiring of 10 new offices. It’s got to be their accurate training of them so we can say they know what they’re doing,” Cohen said.
The recommendations seem straightforward, but getting new training and technologies cost money the city doesn’t have.
“There is room to improve there and make sure we are aware of what is being asked for. While we might not have the budget ourselves, we work with external partners,” Councilmember Mario Castillo said.
Whitmire said he’s counting on the council to work with philanthropists and legislators to help find that funding. But as for when any of those new recommendations might go into place, preventing future problems? We have no idea.
The mayor told ABC13 he doesn’t plan for a third party to keep track of the recommendations working on timelines.
“There is no timeline. Every time someone wants me on a timeline, it gets us off the target,” Whitmire said.
Houstonians are told to have blind trust in a process that has failed them before.
ABC13 has continued to push HPD for updates in their review of suspended cases, but as leadership has changed hands, we’ve been getting fewer updates. We do know that as of a few weeks ago, 111 felonies and 63 misdemeanor charges were pressed from the quarter-million suspended cases.
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