A no-confidence vote for Chief Hurtt
As noted previously, the results of the Houston Police Officers Union survey are in and the rank and file don't support Chief Hurtt. KTRK-13's Miya Shay has the details:
Of the 13 questions, question number 3 is probably the most telling. It reads, "I feel confident in Chief Hurtt's ability to lead the Houston Police Department." Seventy five percent of the respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with that statement.Houston City Councilmember Michael Berry didn't like what he saw.
"We have a serious crime problem right now and we've just been told by a vast majority, a representative sample of officers who are tasked with solving the crime problem, that they don't believe this department's leadership can get it done," he said. "That's as close to a crisis as I can see."
The twelve remaining questions range from discipline procedures to departmental morale. None of the answers painted a rosy picture of HPD. But Chief Hurtt says change is always difficult.
"I'm the person driving change in the organization along with my command staff," he said Thursday. "Any time you're coming to an organization, you're driving change, you expect some resistance."
Notice how Chief Hurtt assumes Houston must change to his way of policing. Apparently it hasn't occurred to the chief that what has worked for him in other cities may not work so well in Houston.
By the way, does anyone know how things were going for HPD (and Houston) when Joe Breshears was acting police chief? If he was doing a good job, why wasn't he named police chief?
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Mayor White is inexplicably sticking by his handpicked (and increasingly beleaguered) police chief. Here are some excerpts from his press release, as posted on KTRK-13:
Houston is fortunate to have an experienced and respected Police Chief who has been recognized by his peers as a national leader in law enforcement. Chief Harold Hurtt came to the department and inherited some difficult circumstances. They included a union contract which created an incentive for mass retirement of officers; a relationship with many neighborhoods in our community strained by two shooting deaths of juveniles; and longstanding problems in administration of the crime lab.
Houston is blessed to have the best trained, best educated, and best led police force in the nation. With the quality of officers up and down the line, I wouldn't trade the uniformed officers of the Houston Police Department for any other major city police force.
[snip]
HPD under Chief Hurtt's leadership has made major strides in restoring confidence in the professionalism of the Department. Widespread implementation of tasers has reduced the risks to both citizens and officers; all elements of a troubled forensics lab have attained national certification; and the Department, from its recruiting classes to its command staff, reflects far more of the rich diversity of Houston than ever before.
We all know diversity is beauty! We're not so sure what it has to do with HPD's core mission of fighting crime, though.
We agree with the mayor on one thing. We have no interest in trading HPD's officers for anyone. We'd just like to ship Mayor White's handpicked, ineffective police chief back to Phoenix.
UPDATE: As Sedosi noted, the Editorial LiveJournalists heaped tons of praise on Chief Hurtt several days ago, apparently trying to blunt the effects of this survey.
ADDITIONAL COVERAGE: KTRK-13, KPRC-2, Chronicle.
BLOGVERSATION: Isiah Carey's Insite.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 07/13/06 09:44 PM | Print |
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