2024-03-18 05:58:36
In the US, the police chief of the city of Houston has announced his intention to restore public trust in the police department after information was made public that more than 264,000 cases had been dropped over the past eight years due to staffing shortages.
NBC News reports this.
Troy Finner, the police chief, revealed last month that manpower shortages had prevented hundreds of thousands of reports of crimes, including sexual assaults and property crimes, from being investigated. To do this, officers used a special code, which is why these cases remained unattended.
These cases represent approximately 10% of the total 2.8 million crime reports recorded over the past eight years.
Finner expressed his regret to victims and their families, as well as to citizens for using the code in violent crime cases, emphasizing that victims deserve better treatment. He stressed that this code should never have been used and will not be used in the future.
Media reports indicate that this internal code was part of the department’s records management system and was introduced in 2016, several years before Finner’s appointment as police chief in April 2021. This code has been used by two previous administrations.
Finner said he first became aware of the code’s use in November 2021 and ordered its revocation. However, he learned that on February 7 this year the code was still being used to close numerous adult sexual assault cases.
The department is currently conducting an internal investigation to determine why the cease-and-desist order was not followed and how the code was first used. Two deputy chiefs were demoted due to their involvement in the incident.
Finner assured that the actions that began in 2016 are unacceptable, and emphasized the department’s responsibility and his personal interest in correcting the current situation.
Previously, Kursor reported about an 18-year-old German who wrote more than 4 thousand denunciations to the police.