Doug Griffith with the HPOU Reacts To The Finner News, May 8th, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Ninety nine one HT two. It'sNews Radio seven forty KGRH on FM Houston's
News, Weather, traffic, andTalk at ninety nine one HT two,
seven twenty three. Now you're inHouston's morning news. Well, would appear
that Troy Fenner was the one whohad to fall on the sword for what's
happened with the Houston Police Department inall these unsolved, uninvestigated cases, thousands

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upon thousands of them they've been goingon for years, because if no other
reason, it turns out he knewabout it sooner than he admitted to knowing
about it. I don't he wasin in a position to make that decision
back then, though, So let'stalk about that with Doug Griffith. He's
with the Houston Police Officers Union.Is it fair to punish Troy with his
job for something that clearly goes backa lot further than his tenure. Well,

(00:48):
I think he, you know,had to deal with some issues that
he was provided they you know,he walked into a position that was really
really difficult, and yes, itstarted under Oscevado, But in reality,
this is if we would have handledthis deffinitely from the beginning and just been
honest with the public, it wouldn'tbe in this position right now. And

(01:08):
that's what the public has to understandis that you know, we're going to
move forward in this, but there'sno way we can investigate every single case
that comes in the department. Weshould be investigating every single case that involves
a face to face and victim.Absolutely. And I also want to say

(01:29):
I want to thank Troy Penner forthirty four years of dedicated service. Yeah,
he was a service person, hewas a patrolman. I mean,
he came up through the ranks.I want to ask you this though,
I mean, because all the headlinesare all about how he's he's resigned and
he knew and he should have known. Look, how come no one ever
brings up Sylvester Turner? It washe was the mayor and the police chief

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is appointed and serves at the pleasureof the mayor. Did they never tell
Sylvester Turner about any of this?Is while he's going out and talking about
how crime stats are going down?And what about the other people who were
in command of these various offices.What kind of accountability are they having to
give? Right? Well, ifyou take a look at our stories back

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from twenty fourteen, ray Hunt wasas city Council. I was at city
council, then chief was at Citycouncil, all claiming the same thing.
Look, we don't have the manpower. We needed help, then we need
help. Now. Nothing's really changedin the last ten years, and that's
really sad, other than the factthat we've lost probably two hundred and fifty

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officers compared to what we had been. So this is going to be a
problem. It's going to continue tobe a problem, but we need to
face it head on and be honestwith people. And that's where my biggest
rub in this is we should havebeen honest from the beginning and told people
the truth. And if we wouldhave done that from the beginning, it
wouldn't have blown up like this.That's a fact, all right, Doug,
thanks for joining us. Appreciate that. Griffith with the Houston Police Officers Union,