December 4, 2023 • 18 mins
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner joins Dana to talk about how HPD is keeping the city safe and who he credits for his incredible endurance at HPD.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So it's nice to talk to ourpolice Chief Troy Finner and who he credits
for his incredible endurance at HPD.It's pretty amazing and I'd love you to
hear his answer and what he's doingto keep our city safe. Police Chief
Troy Finner is my guest on theDana Tyson Podcast, and thank you Gallery
(00:20):
Furniture's Mattress Mac for always sponsoring us. Chief Finner. First of all,
I hope you had an amazing Thanksgivingwith your family. I really did,
Dana, and I hope you aswell. And can I just say something
to my friend, thank you somuch. You are truly an institution in
our great city and such a hugefriend of HPD coming to do ourdad graduations
(00:44):
for so many times, time andtime giving up your own valuable time.
You are a beautiful mother, grandmotherand a very special person in media in
our city and for you to takethat time, so thank you so much
and I love you well. Ilove you too, and you know it's
a joy doing these HPD Cadet graduationswith these people who are about to enter
(01:07):
into a zone. And I'll tellour viewers what you say to them has
always touched my heart, and I'venever heard this before, and it's such
wisdom. You are meeting people onperhaps their worst day, give them and
show them dignity, And it justis like, this is our police chief
(01:30):
in the fourth, maybe the thirdlargest city, teaching those people who have
chosen to follow their calling such anamazing character trait that I never learned that
from my parents. So I thankyou for teaching all of us that,
because that's an amazing thing to reallythink about. You're meeting someone on their
(01:53):
worst day. Our first reflex wouldbe to just be mean and defend yourself.
But you're saying no, it's justbeautiful. I love that sentiment.
Well, thank you. You know, when you get up and you open
up for us your heart and yourfaith, it just goes all over the
room. So it's very easy forme to follow you every day. Well,
(02:15):
I appreciate it. I appreciate it. And just so folks know,
we've both been doing this this samejob. You've been in HPD for thirty
three years. I've been at Sunnyfor thirty three years. My job's are
a heck of a lot easier thanyours. How you've been able to diligently
work your way up. You werein a cadet class thirty three years ago,
(02:38):
and I know you tell them that. And now look at you,
still humble, still working hard.I said, I would give anyone who
works hard and is humble a chanceto do anything, because those are such
great traits that people need to understand. Thank you so much, and it's
(02:58):
really easy. You have so manygreat employees on our department, but more
importantly, the great citizens in ourcity second to nine And I made that
from the bottom of my heart,and that's what you're working on. I
mean, we've had all these citiesduring the pandemic. It has just been
crazy what's been going on. AndHouston has suffered as well. And I
(03:21):
thought it would be kind of likeneat to do a year end state of
our city type approach with you.I know you love community police policing.
So what have you devised? Whatare you and the command staff working on
to make us feel safe and besafe? We just want to keep doing
some of the things that we're doing. I do want to pause, and
(03:42):
just when you talk about the stateof the city and you look at crime,
you have to start counter from thebeginning. And it was before the
pandemic. When you look at HurricaneHarvey, it came in and e wrecked
our criminal justice system. We didn'thave trials for several couple years, and
then the pandemic came in. Sowe're really worse off than any city,
(04:05):
any county, an entire nation.But with the great work of men and
women on our front line, andI mean both classified and support, we're
able to drive those numbers down andpeople, they're still crime in our city.
When you look at at the highpoints, one hundred and sixty thousand
(04:27):
cases backed up, you know,fifteen hundred murder cases. Of those fifteen
hundred murder cases, five hundred capitalmurder cases, five years for some murder
cases to get the trial. Thatadds to it. And then the bickering
a monks. And I'm not pointingat one individual. I'm just saying as
a group, the criminal justice systemand the whole I've been doing this for
(04:48):
thirty three years, as you know, and this current state that we were
in, you know, just goingbackwards and forward and not being solution based
based. I meant to say,you got police officers attacking the DA,
DA saying things, the judges thatlook no we've come together. I think
(05:11):
in a way, citizens deserve tohear solutions. They don't want to hear
about the problems. But what havewe done and where are we to answer
your question? All of the numbersare down, Our murder numbers are down,
and I don't want to go toomuch into stats because we do have
to touch on perceptions and that's whatreally drives people. They have to know
(05:32):
that the police department is here,We're standing strong and in partnership with all
of our federal agencies, our localand our state partners. We're going to
stand strong and continue to stand strong. But we have to do it with
our citizens. When you look athomicides, even though they're down nineteen percent,
they can go down even more.And we want citizens to make better
(05:55):
decisions. Check your emotions at thedoor when you leave the house, and
and you know what, be moretolerant people. We know we have so
many guns out here in our streetsin our city, but know that and
know when you carrying a gun,emotions are gonna go. So if somebody,
you get in an argument with somebody, or are they make you angry,
(06:17):
or they cut you off in traffic, you don't take a gun and
shoot at them, you know.So a lot of things like that,
but I want to grab on themomentum. I'm so proud of the federal
partnership we had, as you know, and I talked about it and several
press conferences, how our federal governmentreally supported us because they saw the need.
(06:38):
They saw first of the great partnershipthat we have with all our federal
partners here is unlike any region inthe nation right now. And this is
from DC what they came down andsaw. But when Attorney General and the
President comes and say, hey,we're gonna help Houston, and we're gonna
send five, five or six additionalfederal prosecutors down there, Dana, we've
(07:00):
knocked the heck out of some somevery very violent games and were we really
really majorly impacted them, disrupted theiractivities. We got almost seventy federal indictments
and that's huge, you know.So I want us to really look at
some of that positive. I knowwe're in a political cycle. We should
(07:21):
have left our next mayor and wewant to move forward whoever it is,
and hopefully, and I think eitherone of them's gone to support the police
department. I don't get into politics, and I'll stay that way, but
really excited about the great work thatwe're doing. But we're going to continue
(07:43):
to focus in on those those mostviolent offenders, uh, those most violent
areas and make sure that we're drivingdown crime. Now, I know that
you've got an initiative with cameras,you're working with parks. What are these
things that we can look forward toin the coming year, So let me
let's start with the cameras and wehave a press conference I think wednesday.
(08:05):
Uh, Well, we're gonna tryto get so many stakeholders, not try
to we will uh invite so manystakeholders in from all walks of life in
our city. Uh my goal,our goal, and then you'll hear it
and the announcement on Wednesday. Tomake sure that we have cameras and license
plate readers uh wherever we can,and that's commercial businesses, uh, homeowners
(08:31):
associations, whatever, private individuals,because if criminals know, if you come
to our great city, there thereare cameras everywhere. And uh we were
not here to follow anybody around andspound Anybody's not about that. But if
you commit a crime in our city, if if you if you you're that
(08:52):
crazy to do that, we wantto get your own camera and we want
to get you in custody as quicklyas possible. The other side of that
is to turn when people know justabout every block I'll go on if there's
a camera, I'm gonna think aboutwhat I'm doing. So that's that's one
big thing. The parks, andI want to give a plug to the
(09:13):
current administration. And I didn't notice. I just recently found this out.
Over the last eight years of MayorTurner, he has about eight hundred and
fifty five million into park renovations.The last few years on Love You Parks,
the Mayor's Love Our Parks initiative,ten parks have been renovated six point
(09:37):
six million dollars. So he's nota mayor that just gave money to law
enforcement. It was a comprehensive approach. But I want to say big qtos
and big thanks to the Parks Department, the director Kenned Allen, our park
rangers who help us keep the parkssafe. Also Matt Barris with Houston Area
(10:03):
of Really Disassociation, my friend whoalways helps with a lot of great publications
and media things. But the VPof le Vella. I'm sorry, let
me pronounce that vella, lee Vellawith clear channel. They're putting out one
hundred over one hundred billboards in Englishand Spanish that talks about keeping our parks
(10:26):
safe and keeping all parks clean.And I think that's amazing because all over
Houston, everybody will be reminded.But as chief, let me remind people
don't come in try to do crimein all parks. We have a lot
of cameras that's going up in ourparks as well. I told you that
the park rangers, our HPD officers, we're in partnerships of patrol in our
(10:52):
parks, don't litter in all parts. Out of three hundred and eighty two
parks in our city, each yearwe collect over sixty six thousand pounds of
tracks. Those funds, those funds, Dana and that staff and the staffing
of that that could go elsewhere,you know. So people should keep all
(11:16):
parks clean and respect them. Inthose parks that we've renovated, the Mayor's
team and the green Space, Iwant to give them credit. They do
so much good work and they don'tget any credit. Respect it. And
if it's a park in your neighborhood, keep it clean, take pride in
it. You know, every kidin our city, no matter what the
(11:39):
socioeconomic status is of your family,you should be able to go to a
park and recreate and have fun.And that's my goal. I'm so serious
on things like that. Every blockin this city is important to me as
the police chief and all of myteam. It is so important. And
I'm so glad again with with ClearChannel digging deep into their pockets and supporting
(12:03):
something like this, because everywhere yougo you see that billboard. Wow,
Okay, they're serious about these parksclean. So and we're gonna enforce it.
We catch somebody living in the parksor committing crimes, we got a
place for you. It's fine,are cossibly jailed. And you know,
I'm a kound of person. Igot a good heart. But at the
(12:24):
same time, people got to beheld accountabhen sometimes they need a little bit
of stimula. Stimulus like my momused to say, let's do the right
thing. So I'm OCD. Whenit comes to trash. I cannot handle
trash, but I'm pulling over pickingup trash, so I get the trash
part of it. What advice Imean you have, you know, for
(12:46):
people who don't realize how hard itis to do what you've accomplished, from
you know, codect class to policechief in this great city. What advice
would you give to younger people,heck even older people, just to live
a good life. What would yousay? Please, stay humble, work
(13:09):
hard whatever you want to do.If you want to rise to the top,
work hard. But as you arerising, understand that you can't do
anything with our people, and youhave to move people. You have to
have a positive influence. And Ithink that the way that you do that
is you treat people right. Youdemand a lot of yourself, but no
(13:33):
matter what's going on, you treatpeople with dignity and respect. And I
can tell you I live by thatevery day. The housekeeping and maintenance people
in my building, they get treatedthe same way as I would treat the
highest rank my executive assistant chiefs,because they are important. And if you
(13:54):
move like that and life every dayand you work hard, and people see
your commitment, not just you talking, it's what are you doing, what
are you saying? Look, peoplerespect that. But I want to give
all credit to God, and that'sso important. A lot of people work
hard, a lot of people canbe chief in major cities, but he
(14:18):
has some favor on me, andyou know, I'd be crazy if I
let him down, in my familydown. And that's what really keeps me
going. I just want to touchas many people as I can in a
positive way at the same time beinga firm chief when I need to,
because I have no problem with that. But I think when you show love
(14:39):
first and you give people that aredignity and their respect, they appreciate that.
Because most people are fairly decent.They just go through tough times.
It's very very small fraction of individualsthat really have a dirty, hard,
dark heart. And unfortunately there's aplace for that few. That's that's in
(15:01):
jail and we pray for him,but that's where they should be. But
that's on a small fraction. Yougotta look at positive side, look at
this great city, and uh,if I leave tomorrow, I'm so honored
that I had an opportunity to leadsuch great men, as such great women,
and a great organization and the bestcity in the world, in the
(15:22):
world, and I get a chanceto talk to my friend, the famous
Dana Dyson, let me ask youthis. I know there are people watching
and going. Man, I wouldlove to work for this man. I
would love him to be my leaderand teach me these principles. How how
do you even become an officer?What would? What would? What would
(15:45):
someone do? I mean, we'vegraduated little women, tall women, little
men, tall men, all walksof life. So what do we do?
We're so proud. Come into ourrecruiting division here at twelve hundred,
our headquarters, and we would getyou rolling. The ages are twenty one
(16:06):
to forty five. You have tobe started the academy before your forty fifth
birthday. But if you're a goodcharacter, if we have three ways,
three requirements, you could military honorabledischarge. I think it's forty forty eight
hours college hours right now. Andalso we recently put in a few years
(16:30):
ago life experience. If you consistentlywork on a job full time for three
years, that's account for something wewant simply good people. And Dan,
I'm so proud of the diversity thatwe have right now in our academy.
We talked about it at the graduationswhen we got twenty five percent females.
(16:52):
And our last classes, which havebeen some of the largest in the HPD
history. I'm so proud of thatand the demographics. They truly reflect our
city, which is the most diversecity in the nation, and I'm so
proud of that because you have tohave those individuals that know what motivates,
(17:15):
what makes a group happy, whatmakes them sad, and that diversity is
so important in twenty first century ofpleasing. So we need people from every
walk of life, as long asthey're a good character, to come in
and work for what I think isthe greatest agency in the world. And
nobody's going to change my mind onthat. You are making it quite an
(17:37):
incredible place to work. And Ijust wanted to chat with you and let
people see you and hear from youother than a press conference. At the
when you're doing and I've even mentionedthis, the things that you have to
witness and the people you have tocalm down, I just wanted you to
be relaxed and come and talk tous so we could get to know the
real man behind this incredibly stressful job. Yeah, well, thank you so
(18:00):
much. And I'm always stressed freewhen I'm with my friend. And I
want to say it again from thebottom of my heart, Houston loves you,
and so does your Chief Troy Feinner. I love you and thank you.
Thank you, Troy, and Ilove you too, And the happiest
of holidays to you and your family. What a legacy you have for your
(18:22):
all your family members, what theywatch you do, it's it's incredible to
all of us. So we appreciateyou. You don't show boat. You
just go out and you work hardand you're humble, and you do an
incredible job for our city. Sothank you, thank you, thank you
so much.
So it's nice to talk to ourpolice Chief Troy Finner and who he credits
for his incredible endurance at HPD.It's pretty amazing and I'd love you to
hear his answer and what he's doingto keep our city safe. Police Chief
Troy Finner is my guest on theDana Tyson Podcast, and thank you Gallery
(00:20):
Furniture's Mattress Mac for always sponsoring us. Chief Finner. First of all,
I hope you had an amazing Thanksgivingwith your family. I really did,
Dana, and I hope you aswell. And can I just say something
to my friend, thank you somuch. You are truly an institution in
our great city and such a hugefriend of HPD coming to do ourdad graduations
(00:44):
for so many times, time andtime giving up your own valuable time.
You are a beautiful mother, grandmotherand a very special person in media in
our city and for you to takethat time, so thank you so much
and I love you well. Ilove you too, and you know it's
a joy doing these HPD Cadet graduationswith these people who are about to enter
(01:07):
into a zone. And I'll tellour viewers what you say to them has
always touched my heart, and I'venever heard this before, and it's such
wisdom. You are meeting people onperhaps their worst day, give them and
show them dignity, And it justis like, this is our police chief
(01:30):
in the fourth, maybe the thirdlargest city, teaching those people who have
chosen to follow their calling such anamazing character trait that I never learned that
from my parents. So I thankyou for teaching all of us that,
because that's an amazing thing to reallythink about. You're meeting someone on their
(01:53):
worst day. Our first reflex wouldbe to just be mean and defend yourself.
But you're saying no, it's justbeautiful. I love that sentiment.
Well, thank you. You know, when you get up and you open
up for us your heart and yourfaith, it just goes all over the
room. So it's very easy forme to follow you every day. Well,
(02:15):
I appreciate it. I appreciate it. And just so folks know,
we've both been doing this this samejob. You've been in HPD for thirty
three years. I've been at Sunnyfor thirty three years. My job's are
a heck of a lot easier thanyours. How you've been able to diligently
work your way up. You werein a cadet class thirty three years ago,
(02:38):
and I know you tell them that. And now look at you,
still humble, still working hard.I said, I would give anyone who
works hard and is humble a chanceto do anything, because those are such
great traits that people need to understand. Thank you so much, and it's
(02:58):
really easy. You have so manygreat employees on our department, but more
importantly, the great citizens in ourcity second to nine And I made that
from the bottom of my heart,and that's what you're working on. I
mean, we've had all these citiesduring the pandemic. It has just been
crazy what's been going on. AndHouston has suffered as well. And I
(03:21):
thought it would be kind of likeneat to do a year end state of
our city type approach with you.I know you love community police policing.
So what have you devised? Whatare you and the command staff working on
to make us feel safe and besafe? We just want to keep doing
some of the things that we're doing. I do want to pause, and
(03:42):
just when you talk about the stateof the city and you look at crime,
you have to start counter from thebeginning. And it was before the
pandemic. When you look at HurricaneHarvey, it came in and e wrecked
our criminal justice system. We didn'thave trials for several couple years, and
then the pandemic came in. Sowe're really worse off than any city,
(04:05):
any county, an entire nation.But with the great work of men and
women on our front line, andI mean both classified and support, we're
able to drive those numbers down andpeople, they're still crime in our city.
When you look at at the highpoints, one hundred and sixty thousand
(04:27):
cases backed up, you know,fifteen hundred murder cases. Of those fifteen
hundred murder cases, five hundred capitalmurder cases, five years for some murder
cases to get the trial. Thatadds to it. And then the bickering
a monks. And I'm not pointingat one individual. I'm just saying as
a group, the criminal justice systemand the whole I've been doing this for
(04:48):
thirty three years, as you know, and this current state that we were
in, you know, just goingbackwards and forward and not being solution based
based. I meant to say,you got police officers attacking the DA,
DA saying things, the judges thatlook no we've come together. I think
(05:11):
in a way, citizens deserve tohear solutions. They don't want to hear
about the problems. But what havewe done and where are we to answer
your question? All of the numbersare down, Our murder numbers are down,
and I don't want to go toomuch into stats because we do have
to touch on perceptions and that's whatreally drives people. They have to know
(05:32):
that the police department is here,We're standing strong and in partnership with all
of our federal agencies, our localand our state partners. We're going to
stand strong and continue to stand strong. But we have to do it with
our citizens. When you look athomicides, even though they're down nineteen percent,
they can go down even more.And we want citizens to make better
(05:55):
decisions. Check your emotions at thedoor when you leave the house, and
and you know what, be moretolerant people. We know we have so
many guns out here in our streetsin our city, but know that and
know when you carrying a gun,emotions are gonna go. So if somebody,
you get in an argument with somebody, or are they make you angry,
(06:17):
or they cut you off in traffic, you don't take a gun and
shoot at them, you know.So a lot of things like that,
but I want to grab on themomentum. I'm so proud of the federal
partnership we had, as you know, and I talked about it and several
press conferences, how our federal governmentreally supported us because they saw the need.
(06:38):
They saw first of the great partnershipthat we have with all our federal
partners here is unlike any region inthe nation right now. And this is
from DC what they came down andsaw. But when Attorney General and the
President comes and say, hey,we're gonna help Houston, and we're gonna
send five, five or six additionalfederal prosecutors down there, Dana, we've
(07:00):
knocked the heck out of some somevery very violent games and were we really
really majorly impacted them, disrupted theiractivities. We got almost seventy federal indictments
and that's huge, you know.So I want us to really look at
some of that positive. I knowwe're in a political cycle. We should
(07:21):
have left our next mayor and wewant to move forward whoever it is,
and hopefully, and I think eitherone of them's gone to support the police
department. I don't get into politics, and I'll stay that way, but
really excited about the great work thatwe're doing. But we're going to continue
(07:43):
to focus in on those those mostviolent offenders, uh, those most violent
areas and make sure that we're drivingdown crime. Now, I know that
you've got an initiative with cameras,you're working with parks. What are these
things that we can look forward toin the coming year, So let me
let's start with the cameras and wehave a press conference I think wednesday.
(08:05):
Uh, Well, we're gonna tryto get so many stakeholders, not try
to we will uh invite so manystakeholders in from all walks of life in
our city. Uh my goal,our goal, and then you'll hear it
and the announcement on Wednesday. Tomake sure that we have cameras and license
plate readers uh wherever we can,and that's commercial businesses, uh, homeowners
(08:31):
associations, whatever, private individuals,because if criminals know, if you come
to our great city, there thereare cameras everywhere. And uh we were
not here to follow anybody around andspound Anybody's not about that. But if
you commit a crime in our city, if if you if you you're that
(08:52):
crazy to do that, we wantto get your own camera and we want
to get you in custody as quicklyas possible. The other side of that
is to turn when people know justabout every block I'll go on if there's
a camera, I'm gonna think aboutwhat I'm doing. So that's that's one
big thing. The parks, andI want to give a plug to the
(09:13):
current administration. And I didn't notice. I just recently found this out.
Over the last eight years of MayorTurner, he has about eight hundred and
fifty five million into park renovations.The last few years on Love You Parks,
the Mayor's Love Our Parks initiative,ten parks have been renovated six point
(09:37):
six million dollars. So he's nota mayor that just gave money to law
enforcement. It was a comprehensive approach. But I want to say big qtos
and big thanks to the Parks Department, the director Kenned Allen, our park
rangers who help us keep the parkssafe. Also Matt Barris with Houston Area
(10:03):
of Really Disassociation, my friend whoalways helps with a lot of great publications
and media things. But the VPof le Vella. I'm sorry, let
me pronounce that vella, lee Vellawith clear channel. They're putting out one
hundred over one hundred billboards in Englishand Spanish that talks about keeping our parks
(10:26):
safe and keeping all parks clean.And I think that's amazing because all over
Houston, everybody will be reminded.But as chief, let me remind people
don't come in try to do crimein all parks. We have a lot
of cameras that's going up in ourparks as well. I told you that
the park rangers, our HPD officers, we're in partnerships of patrol in our
(10:52):
parks, don't litter in all parts. Out of three hundred and eighty two
parks in our city, each yearwe collect over sixty six thousand pounds of
tracks. Those funds, those funds, Dana and that staff and the staffing
of that that could go elsewhere,you know. So people should keep all
(11:16):
parks clean and respect them. Inthose parks that we've renovated, the Mayor's
team and the green Space, Iwant to give them credit. They do
so much good work and they don'tget any credit. Respect it. And
if it's a park in your neighborhood, keep it clean, take pride in
it. You know, every kidin our city, no matter what the
(11:39):
socioeconomic status is of your family,you should be able to go to a
park and recreate and have fun.And that's my goal. I'm so serious
on things like that. Every blockin this city is important to me as
the police chief and all of myteam. It is so important. And
I'm so glad again with with ClearChannel digging deep into their pockets and supporting
(12:03):
something like this, because everywhere yougo you see that billboard. Wow,
Okay, they're serious about these parksclean. So and we're gonna enforce it.
We catch somebody living in the parksor committing crimes, we got a
place for you. It's fine,are cossibly jailed. And you know,
I'm a kound of person. Igot a good heart. But at the
(12:24):
same time, people got to beheld accountabhen sometimes they need a little bit
of stimula. Stimulus like my momused to say, let's do the right
thing. So I'm OCD. Whenit comes to trash. I cannot handle
trash, but I'm pulling over pickingup trash, so I get the trash
part of it. What advice Imean you have, you know, for
(12:46):
people who don't realize how hard itis to do what you've accomplished, from
you know, codect class to policechief in this great city. What advice
would you give to younger people,heck even older people, just to live
a good life. What would yousay? Please, stay humble, work
(13:09):
hard whatever you want to do.If you want to rise to the top,
work hard. But as you arerising, understand that you can't do
anything with our people, and youhave to move people. You have to
have a positive influence. And Ithink that the way that you do that
is you treat people right. Youdemand a lot of yourself, but no
(13:33):
matter what's going on, you treatpeople with dignity and respect. And I
can tell you I live by thatevery day. The housekeeping and maintenance people
in my building, they get treatedthe same way as I would treat the
highest rank my executive assistant chiefs,because they are important. And if you
(13:54):
move like that and life every dayand you work hard, and people see
your commitment, not just you talking, it's what are you doing, what
are you saying? Look, peoplerespect that. But I want to give
all credit to God, and that'sso important. A lot of people work
hard, a lot of people canbe chief in major cities, but he
(14:18):
has some favor on me, andyou know, I'd be crazy if I
let him down, in my familydown. And that's what really keeps me
going. I just want to touchas many people as I can in a
positive way at the same time beinga firm chief when I need to,
because I have no problem with that. But I think when you show love
(14:39):
first and you give people that aredignity and their respect, they appreciate that.
Because most people are fairly decent.They just go through tough times.
It's very very small fraction of individualsthat really have a dirty, hard,
dark heart. And unfortunately there's aplace for that few. That's that's in
(15:01):
jail and we pray for him,but that's where they should be. But
that's on a small fraction. Yougotta look at positive side, look at
this great city, and uh,if I leave tomorrow, I'm so honored
that I had an opportunity to leadsuch great men, as such great women,
and a great organization and the bestcity in the world, in the
(15:22):
world, and I get a chanceto talk to my friend, the famous
Dana Dyson, let me ask youthis. I know there are people watching
and going. Man, I wouldlove to work for this man. I
would love him to be my leaderand teach me these principles. How how
do you even become an officer?What would? What would? What would
(15:45):
someone do? I mean, we'vegraduated little women, tall women, little
men, tall men, all walksof life. So what do we do?
We're so proud. Come into ourrecruiting division here at twelve hundred,
our headquarters, and we would getyou rolling. The ages are twenty one
(16:06):
to forty five. You have tobe started the academy before your forty fifth
birthday. But if you're a goodcharacter, if we have three ways,
three requirements, you could military honorabledischarge. I think it's forty forty eight
hours college hours right now. Andalso we recently put in a few years
(16:30):
ago life experience. If you consistentlywork on a job full time for three
years, that's account for something wewant simply good people. And Dan,
I'm so proud of the diversity thatwe have right now in our academy.
We talked about it at the graduationswhen we got twenty five percent females.
(16:52):
And our last classes, which havebeen some of the largest in the HPD
history. I'm so proud of thatand the demographics. They truly reflect our
city, which is the most diversecity in the nation, and I'm so
proud of that because you have tohave those individuals that know what motivates,
(17:15):
what makes a group happy, whatmakes them sad, and that diversity is
so important in twenty first century ofpleasing. So we need people from every
walk of life, as long asthey're a good character, to come in
and work for what I think isthe greatest agency in the world. And
nobody's going to change my mind onthat. You are making it quite an
(17:37):
incredible place to work. And Ijust wanted to chat with you and let
people see you and hear from youother than a press conference. At the
when you're doing and I've even mentionedthis, the things that you have to
witness and the people you have tocalm down, I just wanted you to
be relaxed and come and talk tous so we could get to know the
real man behind this incredibly stressful job. Yeah, well, thank you so
(18:00):
much. And I'm always stressed freewhen I'm with my friend. And I
want to say it again from thebottom of my heart, Houston loves you,
and so does your Chief Troy Feinner. I love you and thank you.
Thank you, Troy, and Ilove you too, And the happiest
of holidays to you and your family. What a legacy you have for your
(18:22):
all your family members, what theywatch you do, it's it's incredible to
all of us. So we appreciateyou. You don't show boat. You
just go out and you work hardand you're humble, and you do an
incredible job for our city. Sothank you, thank you, thank you
so much.
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