Houston Police Department
The Houston Police Department is the primary municipal law enforcement agency serving the city of Houston, Texas, United States, and some surrounding areas. With approximately 5,300 officers and 1,200 civilian support personnel it is the fifth-largest municipal police department, serving the fourth-largest city in the United States. Its headquarters are at 1200 Travis in Downtown Houston.
HPD's jurisdiction often overlaps with several other law enforcement agencies, among them the Harris County Sheriff's Office and the Harris County Constable Precincts. HPD is the largest municipal police department in Texas.
History
Beginnings
Houston was founded by brothers Augustus and John Kirby Allen in 1836 and incorporated as a city in 1837. As the capital city of the Republic of Texas, it quickly grew, and so did the need for a cohesive law enforcement agency. The Houston Police Department was founded in 1841. The first HPD badge issued bore the number "1."The early part of the 20th century was a time of enormous growth for both Houston and for the Houston Police Department. Due to growing traffic concerns in downtown Houston, the HPD purchased its first automobile in 1910 and created its first traffic squad during that same year. Eleven years later, in 1921, the HPD installed the city's first traffic light. This traffic light was manually operated until 1927, when automatic traffic lights were installed.
As Houston became a larger metropolis throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the HPD found itself growing and acquiring more technology to keep up with the city's fast pace. The first homicide division was established in 1930. During that same year, the HPD purchased newer weapons to arm their officers: standard issue.44 caliber revolvers and two Thompson submachine guns. In 1939, the department proudly presented its first police academy class. The Houston Police Officers Association was created in 1945. This organization later became the Houston Police Officers Union. The first African American woman police officer on the force, Margie Duty, joined the HPD in 1953, starting in the Juvenile Division.
Some historians have asserted that the HPD enforced an oppressive racial system that targeted blacks for harassment and failed to protect the black community during the Jim Crow era. In Race and the Houston Police Department, author and academic Dwight Watson writes that "HPD zealously enforced racial segregation in Houston".
In 1967, a civil rights protest at Texas Southern University turned into what police say was a riot. One officer was killed and nearly 500 students were arrested. It was as a result of these riots that the still-active Community Relations Division was created within the HPD. In 1970, the Helicopter Patrol Division was created with three leased helicopters. That year also marked the department's first purchase of bulletproof vests for their officers. The HPD's first Special Weapons and Tactics squad was formed in 1975.
Modern times
In 1982, the Houston Police Department appointed its first African-American chief of police, Lee P. Brown, who succeeded B.K.Johnson. Brown served as chief from 1982 to 1990 and later became the City of Houston's first African-American mayor in 1998. While Brown was considered a successful chief, he also earned the unflattering moniker "Out of Town Brown" for his many lengthy trips away from Houston during his tenure.Brown's appointment was controversial from the start. Traditional HPD officers frowned upon Brown because he was an outsider from Atlanta, Georgia where he was the police commissioner; to become the police chief in Houston, an officer has to advance through the rank and file although the "good old boy" culture was prevalent.
The HPD paved a new road again in 1990 when Mayor Kathy Whitmire appointed Elizabeth Watson as the first female chief of police. Elizabeth Watson served from 1990 to 1992 and was followed by Sam Nuchia, who served as police chief from 1992 to 1997. In 1997, Clarence O. Bradford was appointed as chief. In 2002, Bradford was indicted and later acquitted of perjury charges, stemming from an incident in which he allegedly lied under oath about cursing fellow officers.
Since 1992, the Houston City Marshal's division, Houston Airport Police, and Houston Park Police were absorbed into HPD. In early 2004, during Mayor Bill White's first term in office, HPD absorbed the Neighborhood Protection division from the City of Houston Planning Department, which was renamed the Neighborhood Protection Corps in 2005. Annise Parker, Mayor White's successor, moved the Neighborhood Protection Corps into the Department of Neighborhoods when the new city division was established in August 2011 - the NPC was renamed as the Inspections and Public Service division of the Department of Neighborhoods.
Crime laboratory
In November 2002, the CBS local TV station KHOU began broadcasting a multi-part investigation into the accuracy of the HPD Crime Lab's findings. Particularly of interest to the reporters were criminal cases that involved DNA analysis and serological testing. Night after night journalists David Raziq, Anna Werner and Chris Henao presented case after case in which the lab's work was dangerously sloppy or just plain wrong and may have been sending the innocent to prison while letting the guilty go free. As a result of those broadcasts, at the end of the week the Houston Police Department declared they would have a team of independent scientists audit the lab and its procedures. However, the audit's findings were so troublesome that one month later, in mid- December, HPD closed the DNA section of the laboratory. Not only did the audit bolster KHOU's report but also found that samples were contaminated and the lab's files were very poorly maintained. The audit revealed that a section of the lab's roof was leaking into sample-containment areas, lab technicians were seriously undereducated or unqualified for their jobs, samples had been incorrectly tagged, and samples had been contaminated through improper handling. Worse, many people had been convicted and sent to prison based upon the evidence contained in the crime lab. The New York Times asked the question, "Worst Crime Lab in the Country?" in a March 2003 article.Beginning in early 2003, the HPD Crime Lab began cooperating with outside DNA testing facilities to review criminal cases involving cases or convictions associated with Crime Lab evidence. However, this again came as a result of some prompting investigatory work done by the TV station KHOU. Reporters David Raziq, Anna Werner and Chris Henao got an e-mail from a local mother. She told them that her son, Josiah Sutton, had been tried for rape in 1999 and found guilty based upon HPD Crime Lab testing. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. So KHOU began to take an intensive look at the Sutton case. Raziq and Werner analyzed the HPD lab's DNA report with the help of DNA expert Bill Thompson of the University of California-Irvine. They found obvious mistakes in the report that the lab should have known about. Not long after that broadcast, the HPD agreed to an immediate retest of the DNA evidence in the Sutton case. Those tests showed the DNA collected in the case did not belong to Sutton. He was released from prison in March 2003 and given a full pardon in 2004.
As a result of the scandal, nine Crime Lab technicians were disciplined with suspensions and one analyst was terminated. However, that analyst was fully reinstated to her previous position in January 2004, less than one month after her December 2003 termination. Many HPD supervisors and Houston residents called for more stringent disciplinary actions against the Crime Lab employees. However, the city panel responsible for disciplining the lab technicians repeatedly resisted these arguments and instead reduced the employees' punishments. Irma Rios was hired in 2003 as Lab Director, replacing Interim Lab Director Frank Fitzpatrick.
In May 2005, the Houston Police Department announced that with much effort and coordination on their part, they had received national accreditation through the American Society of Crime Lab Directors. The ASCLD stated that the lab had met or exceeded standards for accreditation in all areas except DNA. Through independent research and testing, it was determined in January 2006 that of 1,100 samples reviewed, 40% of DNA samples and 23% of blood evidence samples had serious problems. On June 11, 2007, the HPD crime lab reported its DNA section had gained full accreditation from ASCLD.
In the October 6, 2007 The Houston Chronicle published allegations of Employees cheating on an open-book proficiency test.
Safe Clear
The Safe Clear program was implemented by Mayor Bill White on January 1, 2005, as a joint venture between the City of Houston and the Houston Police Department. The intention of the program was to decrease the freeway accidents and traffic jams that occurred due to stalled drivers. Select tow truck companies across the city were authorized to tow a stalled vehicle as soon as possible after being notified by an HPD officer. Persons having their vehicle towed were provided with a Motorist's Bill of Rights and were required to pay a sum to the City of Houston after the towing had taken place.The program was initially very unpopular among Houston residents. Frequent complaints were that the program unfairly punished lower-income motorists by enforcing a high towing fee and that the program could potentially damage vehicles that required special tow trucks and equipment to be safely towed away. Other complaints were that stranded motorists did not have an option to choose their own garage. The city and the HPD addressed these concerns with program improvements that provided funds to pay for short tows that removed stalled vehicles from the freeway and then allowed drivers to choose their own garage and tow companies once they were safely off the freeway.
Studies released in February 2006 indicate that Safe Clear has been successful during its fledgling year. There were 1,533 fewer freeway accidents in 2005, a decrease of 10.4% since Safe Clear's implementation.