The HPD Police Chief played defense or sorts yesterday. He also gave us a dose of reality. Here is from the Chron today:
Defending his department’s failure to investigate thousands of crimes last year, Police Chief Charles McClelland on Thursday said the understaffed Houston Police Department does not and should not have a goal of aggressively probing every crime reported to it.
“We work violent crimes first. If someone steals your trash can or your lawn mower out of your garage, there are no witnesses, there’s no evidence, there’s nothing for a detective to follow up on, it’s not assigned,” McClelland, a 37-year veteran of HPD, told City Council members during a budget hearing. “There has never been a time that I have been employed there that the Houston Police Department has had the capacity to investigate every crime that’s been reported to the agency.”
It was the chief’s first public comment since a city-commissioned study showed the department did not investigate 20,000 crimes with workable leads in 2013. The vast majority of the cases were burglaries and thefts, but also included 3,000 assaults and nearly 3,000 hit-and-runs.
Well I don’t know about that. In an earlier article some victims of burglaries said they had given info over to the HPD and they never heard back.
Here is more:
McClelland said he has read the 207-page document and has asked his executive team members to do the same. The chiefs will meet to discuss the report soon, he said, then will present staffing recommendations to Mayor Annise Parker.
“It’s something we know cannot be resolved in one budget year or two budget years,” he said, “but we do have to put a plan in place to address it.”
I really don’t think he has a plan in place. I think he is kind of struggling to figure out what is going on.
I don’t know if this is dysfunctional, mismanagement, being overwhelmed, comical, or the new normal. Maybe the City ought to put in our water bills a flyer telling us what crimes HPD will investigate so we don’t get our hopes up. I really don’t sense a whole lot of confidence in the Chief from City Hall. I will say this, finding a solution and not handing out excuses will be front and center in the next City elections in 2015. I am talking about hard choices and not tough slogans.
This morning the ‘Stros have better records than four teams – name the four?
Today is the 70th Anniversary of D-Day or “the longest day.”
The Lone Star State GOP is up in Fort Worth trash talking The President, sticking it to immigrants and trying to find a solution for the LGBT folks. Oh brother.
The ‘Stros have better records today than the Cubbies, D-Backs, Phillies, and Rays of course.
It was happening at The Yard last night. With the first pick we drafted a lefty from California and we won 8-3 to take the series from the Angels. We also won the homie, 4 games to three.
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