Talk:Houston Police Department

Pictures

I'm wary of adding pictures unless I've taken them myself. Don't want to infringe upon any copyrights. Anyone want to help beef up this article with some pictures? Or just help beef it up, period?

--66.25.17.238 04:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Here are 3 options, I'm not sure which one to use. The location of the building makes it difficult to take a "clean" picture. Image 1 Image 3

Hourick 01:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup on links

I might have some photos in my archive that might be relevant, but I think it needs to be cleaned up a bit more. I don't have much additional information to add, though. I'll add it to my list for this week. --Hourick 14:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC) Done! --Hourick 15:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

housed the logo with some relevant data on the right side in a box. Don't have additional information to put in. Perhaps cut down on the division list and make it's own page? It just adds clutter. Would like more detailed history.

Now that HPD Lab controversy is winding down should that be repositioned in the page?--Hourick 17:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned out dead links, citizens against safe clear's website is dead, do you think the site should just be deleted since they don't really have a website up? I couldn't find a current website at all. --Hourick 23:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Moved Organization chart

Created/moved organization chart to its own page with a link in its original location.

Might do the same or create page with a merge/purge with other information that seems to just clutter up the article. I took a photo of HPD's HQ downtown recently and have pics of it's mounted police. I'll search my archives for it. --Hourick 23:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Completely unnecessary. Article isn't long enough to justify splitting into separate articles. I've moved it back. -- Necrothesp 08:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Houston Police Department patch.JPG

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Spanish names

The Spanish names of the HPD police stations are in this document: "Guía de Padres Para SEGURIDAD DE NIÑOS EN EL INTERNET." (sic) - Houston Police Department WhisperToMe (talk) 19:39, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Officers Indicted or Arrested while employed by HPD

I need opinion as to whether or not this section is properly formatted AND appropriate to the article. Looking at the Los Angeles Police Department, New York City Police Department, and several other departments, only NYPD seems to have something remotely about disciplined officers, and even then, they were broken away to another article, then THEN broken down to a sub-sub article (Abner Louima). My feeling it that is isn't consistent with other articles of police departments, I would not be opposed to it being included in the History of the Houston Police Department in the appropriate section. I will leave the edit as it currently stands until a suitable amount of time for a discussion to take place, if none occurs, then I will revert and assimilate the information into the history article. --Hourick (talk) 19:38, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Spanish articles

• Pinkerton, James and Dale Lezon. "Celebran servicio religioso en memoria del policía de Houston Henry Canales." Houston Chronicle (La Voz de Houston). Tuesday June 30, 2009.

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:51, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hello, my name is JoVanna and in my Public Administrations class I am required to choose a article to submit suggestions to. I chose your article because I am from Houston, Tx and the police department is something I find interesting. I found this article to be extremely informative. I do want to suggest that in the paragraph "The Academy, field training, and mentor program" you add some more information on what the lateral classes that were once held for other police agencies are and why they are no longer being held.

Bobcatj15 (talk) 05:19, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Both the classsic mentor program and the lateral entry academy classes were recruitment efforts used by HPD when their traditional recruiting methods were not producing enough candidates to meet desired goals. The classic “Mentor” program (I use the term classic to differentiate it from how ‘mentor’ is used in the article now, as a general term for the various experienced officers you would ride with while still on probation so you could learn multiple approaches for handling incidents and thus develop your own style of policing) was aimed at currently serving HPD officers who were *not* assigned to Recruiting Division. They would get a financial bonus by actively seeking out possible recruits on their off duty time. A certain amount of money would be paid to them for recruiting a candidate that successfully passed all that was required to enter the Academy and a second amount would be paid out if their recruit also successfully completed their probationary period. I was one of the last mentor program hires; the program ended in or about 1992. HPD terminated the program but the backlog in applicant testing and academy class openings meant recruits from the program (and thus the payout for the mentoring officer) were still being processed until at least 1994 (my own Academy entry year, which is all that I can attest to). The lateral entry program was an effort to recruit experienced officers (but only certain types of peace officers, as defined in part under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 2.12; but generally those whose duties and powers were similar to HPD’s). Those recruited under this program were allowed to apply their years of experience to seniority within HPD, start at a higher pay scale, and cut their Academy class from 6 months to only about 6 weeks since they already had a peace officers license and mostly had to learn just HPD specific information such as General Orders, Policy and Procedure, etc. The Lateral Entry Program thus allowed HPD to save a great deal of money by drastically reducing training time and gain intangible benefits like introducing alternate points of view on handling incidents, training, and public relations. However, politically it was a very sensitive topic. Departments who lose officers to these types of programs can feel that all the time and money they invested into training and maintaining quality officers was unfairly gained by the new employer (often derogatorily referred to as “poaching”). In the main, both programs ended because HPD met desired staffing goals and was able to maintain the numbers it wanted through ordinary recruiting. Adjustments in policy, such as allowing veterans with an honorable discharge to substitute years served for college hour requirements, budgeting in more overtime hours for patrol officers, and becoming more competitive through better pay and benefits, for instance, were some of the factors that allowed them to reach that goal. This information only applies up until 2002 and is based on first hand knowledge gained while I was an officer there (though the information can be confirmed and probably greatly expanded upon by HPD’s Recruiting Division). If HPD reintroduced those or similar programs since then I do not have any knowledge of them. I know the original post was made years ago, but since I was interested enough to follow the link I thought some basic information on the topic would be better than none in case others were still looking at this question too. I only posted this for those who have a general curiosity on the subject and the information provided should in no way be considered any part of the excellent main entry on the Houston Police Department. Ebdonaldson (talk) 02:11, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

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Editorial

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Houston-police-have-killed-6-men-We-15302437.php

found this WhisperToMe (talk) 15:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19

"Since June 6, at least 23 Houston police officers have tested positive for the virus." (George_Floyd_protests#cite_note-472 footnote)

See also COVID-19 pandemic in Texas#June . --Neun-x (talk) 15:20, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure this belongs in the article because of WP:NOTNEWS. Twenty years from now, will it make sense for articles on police forces, airline crews, schools, etc., to continue to cover the number of members who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020? Does it make sense today to add information to each of their articles about the number of their members who died during the 1918–1920 flu epidemic? I think that would be giving that information undue weight in the context of the topic. Largoplazo (talk) 17:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

High-speed chases

The High-speed chases section was adding on September 13 in a series of edits by user:Jgo1906, user:SecundaCJoseph, and user:Yobholmes, sourced to coverage of a Houston Chronicle investigation [1]. I then made a minor tweak to clarify that the data was for a five-year period [2]. The sourced second paragraph, mentioning the frequency of chases ("more high-speed chases than all the major Texas cities combined") and the analysis of where the chases happened and who was being chased ("more than eighty percent of the pursuits were done in Black and or Latino communities and were in pursuit of Black and or Brown people"), was removed October 3 by an IP [3] with an edit summary calling it "Insane propaganda" and restored by me. user:Earl of Arundel removed this paragraph today, calling it an accusation of racial-profiling based on raw data [4]. I restored it with the summary 'Discuss it on talk please. We simply present the facts as given in the source. There's no mention of "racial profiling" ' Earl of Arundel removed it again.

I think that after almost 8 weeks the status quo is that the material is in the article, and it should remain in the article unless a consensus is reached here to remove it.

As for the contested content, I see no valid reason suggested to exclude the claim about the frequency of chases in the city relative to other cities. The point seems to be that that Houston has more chases than US cities of comparable size, but the wording could do with some clarification. The cited ref actually says that there are more chases in Houston than in Chicago; or in Los Angeles; or in San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin combined. Houston has the 4th largest population of US cities. The largest population is in New York, but it is so much larger that it would make no sense to compare the number of chases. Los Angeles is #2, with more than 1-1/2 times Houston's population. Chicago is #3, with a slightly larger population that Houston. San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin are the 3 largest Texas cities after Houston and have a combined population roughly equal to that of Los Angeles. The next largest US city is Phoenix, but it's only roughly 2/3 Houston's size. It seems like a fair selection of cities for comparison. It's certainly not racial profiling.

The claim about where the chases happened and who was being chased is simply Wikipedia reporting the facts the source found. The source simply reports the facts without calling it racial profiling. Wikipedia does not call it racial profiling. The Houston police chief claims his officers "do not target people of color for pursuits." There is an accusation of racial profiling in the article, made in a lawsuit filed by the spouse of a bystander killed. We don't mention it. The statistics may be uncomfortable, and there may actually be racial profiling going on, but I think it's a stretch to call Wikipedia's neutral coverage of the reported facts racial profiling. Meters (talk) 00:38, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

The problem as I see is that these so-called statistics which break down high-speed chases in terms of race are completely irrelevant without some sort of context. (The contentious passage being "The investigation also found that more than eighty percent of the pursuits were done in Black and or Latino communities and were in pursuit of Black and or Brown people.") Had the investigation conducted by the newspaper instead broken things along the lines of gender, political affiliation, or really any other category, neither would those numbers warrant inclusion in the article for much the same reason. Earl of Arundel (talk) 02:16, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Again, we're just reporting the results. No accusations of profiling. More than 80% of chases involving any category is worth mentioning. Are you saying that no matter what category the breakdown was someone could claim some sort of "ism" profiling? So if the paper had found more than 80% of all chases involved, say, teenagers it would be age profiling for us to mention it? Males... gender profiling? Red cars... paint colour profiling? Teenage male drivers in red cars... all three. Meters (talk) 03:21, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

No support for removing this or the claim that this is a racial profiling, so restoring the sourced version that has been in the article for 2 months. Meters (talk) 00:31, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Just noting that before I restored today, user:Xomegas had restored on Nov 13 and was immediately undone by Earl of Arundel. Meters (talk) 00:40, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

And to clarify, the modified material about the comparison of the frequency of chases compared to other major Texas cities (and now other American cities) was not deleted in the last round. Meters (talk) 00:50, 17 November 2024 (UTC)