13 Investigates spoke with an HPD deputy director who said she was in a meeting with Chief Troy Finner in November 2021, when he first learned cases were being suspended due to lack of personnel.
A retired Houston police deputy director is defending Chief Troy Finner to 13 Investigates amid a review of hundreds of thousands of cases going uninvestigated due to a staffing code.Diana Poor said she was sitting next to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner in November 2021, when he was first told about the "suspended - lack of personnel" code during a meeting with 15 to 20 high ranking HPD leaders.
"Chief Finner was very upset that HPD was using this type of code," Poor recalled of the 2021 meeting when he first learned about it. "Very upset about it and was telling the investigative members and the executive staff that was there that they needed to get manpower into those divisions in order to address all of these codes and that we were to stop using that type of code. It was not appropriate.
But, she said she doesn't think it ever made it to his desk. Poor said that's because she received an email from HPD's James Jones asking if the circular needed to go department-wide because it seemed like it was an investigative-only issue. "From that point, that letter never got sent anywhere. It stopped in office. It never got sent to the Chief office and it never got returned to me," Poor said. "Policy says every letter must go to the intended recipient. I wrote it to Chief Finner. When I didn't get any information on it, I assumed it went to Finner and Finner made the decision he wasn't going to put out the circular.
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