HOUSTON — Houston Police Chief Troy Finner took to X on Thursday to give an update on the thousands of suspended incident reports since 2016.
In the update, Finner said investigators and officers had "reviewed all 4,017 incident reports with an adult sex crime nexus."
"Of those, 3,462 have been cleared, suspended or inactivated, mostly due to no additional leads," Finner said.
He said those cases could be reopened if a complainant comes forward with new evidence.
"The remaining reports are being investigated," Finner said in the statement posted to social media just after 6 p.m.
He also said that one of the incidents previously said to have had a DNA match in their system actually didn't have a CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) match. He said investigators were working to follow up on the 94 reports with a match. He said 14 of those hits matched profiles of suspects currently in jail for other crimes.
"We remain laser-focused on providing trauma-informed services to any sexual assault survivors and are prioritizing family violence and crime against persons reports," Finner's statement said.
Finner said that all 807 reports involving family violence had been reviewed and 551 of them were cleared, inactivated, or suspended. He said they're following up on the other 250 incidents to determine if they require further investigation.
Additionally, Finner said that out of the 264,000 incident reports suspended with the "lack of personnel" code, nearly 92,000 had been reviewed, about one-third of all the reports. He said about 30,000 of the reports were properly suspended but with the wrong code.
The massive case review project has resulted in 34 charges filed on 27 suspects. Some were for violent offenses such as aggravated assault, but most, according to Finner, were misdemeanors.
"This is what progress looks like. We are learning from any past mistakes in our case management and review protocols and making corrections as this review process continues," he said.