To date, Mayor Whitmire has acted admirably regarding Houston Police Department’s failure to investigate issue. However, the victim impact aspect of the failure to investigate is woefully inadequate so far. Although many of the reported crimes have had their statute of limitations run some of the crimes would be repeating or ongoing creating an opportunity for addressing the reports that can still be addressed.
Although the details would need refining, a basic structure to empower victims to further pursue their complaints wouldn’t be terribly difficult or expensive to establish. The Mayor or any three City Council members could initiate a plan similar to what is set forth below for action by City Council.
Identify the Victims
First, every complainant who did not have their report investigated is notified that their report was not investigated, and the report number and whatever paperwork exists into the complaint is sent to the victim. This not only resolves the question of what complaints were not investigated, but lets victims know where they stand… was their complaint investigated? This could work in reverse also; anyone who has a report number could actively query HPD and receive this information.
Investigate the Reports
All the reports need to be investigated, even if they ultimately end up with a finding of no evidence to support the claim due to the passage of time. This is going to be a significant undertaking, but the City has options to address the intensive resources required.
Fundamentally, Houston is full of good people who would be willing to volunteer some time to help address the cases. The cases not investigated will range across the Texas Penal Code. This variety of cases will lead to cases that lend themselves to subject matter expertise rather than general law enforcement investigation. The City could appoint volunteer investigators with subject matter expertise to investigate the specialty cases, attorneys with criminal law background to screen for possible prima fascia evidence of penal code elements being met, etc.
Refer for Prosecution if Applicable
Although most of the cases will not be suitable for prosecution, some will be either directly or on the basis of ongoing nature. Also, subsequent criminal activity discovered in the investigations could be referred for prosecution. Now, this will require the District Attorney’s office to cooperate, but at least the effort to refer the cases to the DA’s office should be undertaken. Also, to the extent that municipal violations are uncovered and prosecutable the City could utilize the municipal courts to provide some measure of justice to the victims who did not have their cases investigated.
Accountability
Lastly, the public needs to be made aware of the depth and extent of the failure to investigate and subsequent prosecutions. A thorough investigation into the how and why aspects should occur, but after that logical, on point follow up action needs to occur.
Keep Politics Out of the Issue
This isn’t an area where political points should be had. The wrongdoers are not likely to be held accountable, and we shouldn’t seek a scapegoat for the problem. The focus needs to be on the hard work of identifying and remedying the problem, and assisting victims. Any political nature to the investigation or consequences detracts from that purpose.
Staff shortages notwithstanding, there is absolutely no excuse for HPD’s failure to investigate these cases. I say this as a former law enforcement officer.
Howie, how are cases all to be investigated when HPD is at least 1,000 officers short handed? Would you work 100 hours of overtime per week to clear the backlog? 50 hours of overtime per week?
And that staffing shortfall is entirely on the heads of the short sighted Republicans like Paul Bettencourt who think taxes are too high and pushed the ill conceived revenue caps, but expect police and fire to be fully staffed. The budgets for HPD and HFD exceed property tax collections by $200 million. Sales taxes make up the bulk of the rest of the revenue, but are not controllable and cannot be increased.
The whole situation will be even worse when Houston taxpayers have to pony up nearly a billion dollars to pay for firefighter raises and back pay over the next 5 or 6 years.
Howdy Ross,
How would you fix the funding crisis?
It’s looking like a painful set of decisions no matter what avenue is chosen.
I don’t see any options that do not involve raising property taxes. The budgeted amount of property taxes for the current fiscal year is $1.377 billion. The budget for police, fire, 911 Center, and Municipal Courts is $1.646 billion. that means public safety alone exceeds property tax collections by $269 million. Assuming 1000 more police would cost $100 million and the HFD back pay and raises over the next 5 years adds another $100 million, public safety will exceed property tax collections by nearly $500 million.
Sales taxes bring in about $865 million, and the City is currently receiving $200 million in inter-governmental funds, which I think is from the Feds, but that’s going away.
Increasing property taxes by $200 million would be a 14% increase. Not optimum, but necessary. Breaking out solid waste from the General Fund and implementing a trash fee would free up about $100 million, but I am skeptical as to how much it will cost to make the change from funding by property tax to funding by a monthly bill. How many more billing clerks will be required for that?
Like you said, it’s going to be painful no matter what is done.
Ross takes are always solid. Like sun dried cowshit.
it was just over 5 years ago a $1.1 billion bond narrowly passed to shore up about 6% of the 16 billion dollar deficit in the police and muni workers pensions, as a native Houstonian who once advocated proudly for my hometown I knew the consequences that were coming…paying for debt instead of keeping basic things in order. The streets are crumbling, water bills are astronomical and will increase by 10%/year through 2027, garbage fees are coming and so on.
Sly said he left with a $400 million surplus for the incoming mayor. Whitmire declares there is a $160 million deficit and he will be funding $650 million for back pay to fire department employees who actually had a solvent pension that was raided by Sly.
Paul Bettencourt has nothing to do with these very predictable outcomes.
On a happier note, glad to see you posting Howie!
okay sorry Ross…should have said fossilized bovine fecum. My bad.
Almost 5 years after the executions of the Tuttles and their dog in Pecan Park, Kim Ogg quietly dismisses the charges against the only two executioners who were actually charged for their murders. When are the Tuttles going to get justice?
A: Never.
Goines has been reindicted. Bryant pleaded guilty to Federal charges, but Iu can’t find the sentence that was imposed.
Too many people have short term memory problems about situations like this. Every police chief in memory has declared they didn’t have enough resources to accomplish the increasing laundry list of functions expected of HPD and the city has spent a great deal of money on studies that reinforce the claims. This has been discussed here numerous times by such luminaries as Bill King and others but when the latest version of this ongoing scandal pops back up, the Pollyanna crowd starts wringing their hands and acting like they’ve never heard of it. It’s simply old news in a slightly new package.
The last study caused a stir almost exactly 10 years ago, titled “Houston Police Department
Operational Staffing Model” by Justex and PERF, the police chief at the time declaring in headlines “Chief: Understaffed HPD can’t investigate every crime, shouldn’t try”. Media headlines went wild upon finding out tens of thousands of cases per year were not investigated, and those were said to be cases with investigatable leads, not the random kooks calling for everything under the sun over a pet peeve. Mayor Parker punted on most of the recommendations like her many predecessors and the results were akin to rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic just before the iceberg hit.
Back then, the big revelation was that child abuse cases were not being sufficiently tackled and the growing number in their queue was in the thousands. Parker, worried about her legacy, decided to focus on the city establishing an upgraded crime lab outside the oversite of HPD, at a time when the Harris County lab had ample capacity to take over, the long festering rape kit scandal forced to fruition by the state legislature. The public continued demanding more street officers in patrol cars and HPD’s civilian employees were cut repeatedly under her administration as well as Bill White’s, taking officers off the street to handle more of the administrative work on their own.
Recently, the big news story was about a specific computer code used to list such cases that wouldn’t be investigated because of a lack of investigators. That totally side steps the real problem that has been a fact of life as long as any of us have been alive. There are too many demands on a limited resource, in this case classified officers, HPD’s number dropping over time while the city has grown. Retention has been an issue just as much as recruitment, experts pointing out two sets of pension cuts had a pronounced impact and city finances unable to afford more officers at rates competing with other police agencies.
The pension issues have been discussed on this very website many times. Whatever your stance, changes to that benefit had consequences and hundreds upon hundreds of officers left, including the most experienced who were snapped up all over the place. The cost to train and outfit a police cadet exceeds what some of you seem to think, and due to their compensation structure, within several years can triple. While pension costs and liabilities were largely stabilized by these cuts, the other side of the equation is Houston has fewer officers, with less expertise, and an inability to recruit qualified candidates that is so bad, the standards have dropped repeatedly.
The city’s complex budget does not allow for simple solutions either, from the voter approved revenue cap to the need for elected democrats to buy votes in a popularity contest of handouts to the state imposed mandates. The city already engages in enough shady budgeting, look how putting off dealing with the firefighters worked under the last two administrations. Mayor Whitmire is not going to close all the libraries, sell all parks, illegally increase property taxes, or any of a thousand different suggestions people have made, nor would most of those make a big difference.
Ross’ comments are on target whether you like them or not. Most of Greg’s suggestions don’t work in reality. Those impacted by this latest version of the manpower scandal can already find out if their case was one of the many but aside from the sex crimes, wasting even more manpower on cases past the statute of limitations would be a foolish waste of scarce manpower. Common sense tells us that thousands of new cases are still being reported and set aside as resources are pulled to investigate the older cases. The sexual assault cases need to be investigated and are still prosecutable but the stolen cars your insurance company paid you off 7 years ago, just move on. Using volunteer investigators, as if there would be a rush to join in on the endeavor when you can’t pay people enough to do it under legally required specifications, would just open up a huge can of worms.
Privatizing garbage service would not save residents money, nor would HFD allow EMS services to be likewise pushed into the private sector. Just accept that selecting better police chiefs and command staffers might help prioritize the manpower they do have to focus on the worst crimes and don’t look back.