HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) – Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s independent committee to investigate the Houston Police Department’s suspended incident reports scandal has released its long-awaited report.
This five-member committee, composed of former and current state and city officials and leaders, was established in early March and has met almost weekly since then.
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 have a great city and great people, but we face challenges,” Whitmire said.
ABC13 was told that a combination of these factors resulted in a quarter of a million incident reports being suspended.
To prevent a similar scandal, communication between departments and the training of newly appointed managers must be improved, the committee demanded.
Committee Chair Ellen Cohen said they discovered cases where people were promoted to positions they had no knowledge of and were given no instructions on how to fill the role.
“It’s not just about hiring 10 new employees. It’s also about carefully training the employees so that we can say they know what they’re doing,” Cohen said.
The recommendations seem straightforward, but new training and technology cost money the city doesn’t have.
“There is still room for improvement here. We need to make sure we know what is required. Even though we may not have the necessary budget ourselves, we are working with external partners,” said Council Member Mario Castillo.
Whitmire said he expects the council to work with philanthropists and lawmakers to find that funding. But when might these new recommendations go into effect and prevent future problems? We have no idea.
The mayor told ABC13 he does not plan to have a third party oversee the recommendations and create timelines.
“There is no timetable. Every time someone asks me for a timetable, it takes us off track,” Whitmire said.
The citizens of Houston are being told to have blind faith in a process that has failed them before.
ABC13 continued to press HPD for updates in reviewing suspended cases, but since the change in leadership, we’ve been getting fewer updates. We know that a few weeks ago, out of the 250,000 suspended cases, 111 felony charges and 63 misdemeanor charges were filed.
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