Mayor John Whitmire named Jose Noe Diaz as chief of the Houston Police Department, tapping the longtime law enforcement officer to lead the department out of a scandal in which more than 250,000 cases were suspended due to a lack of personnel.
Diaz has been head of the Katy Police Department for five years, where he oversaw fewer than 100 officers. He takes over a department of nearly 6,500, including about 5,300 officers.
Before his time in Katy, Diaz, who is known as J. Noe Diaz, had a 25-year career with the Texas Department of Public Safety, which he joined after leaving Harris County Constables Precinct 5 in 1996, according to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement.
“What I was looking for is someone that’s familiar with Houston,” Whitmire said. “And I thought it was important at this period in time to go outside the department, someone that knows the department from having worked with them.”
At DPS, Diaz worked his way up from Katy Highway Patrol trooper to the Houston Narcotics Division, and then the Harris County Organized Crime Task Force in 2001. In 2008, he was named a Texas Ranger and worked in Rio Grande City before he was reassigned back to Houston as a Public Corruption Ranger, according to his biography on the City of Katy website.
Officers who have worked with Diaz have spoken highly of the new chief, Houston Police Officers Union President Doug Griffith said.
“I know everybody’s worried about him going from a small department to such a large department like HPD,” said Griffith. “The main thing there is going to be to make sure he surrounds himself with people that understand how HPD works.”
Diaz’s ascension comes on the heels of a suspended cases scandal which wracked the city’s top brass, leading to the ouster of long-time chief Troy Finner.
More than 250,000 cases had been labeled “suspended – lack of personnel,” including 4,000 in the sex crimes division, leaving many alleged victims waiting for police help they did not know had been paused indefinitely.
Auditors announced Wednesday that HPD leaders had missed multiple opportunities to stop the misuse of the label.
Finner later told the Houston Chronicle that he was pushed out to bury the scandal.
Diaz told reporters Friday that restoring trust in the community after the scandal and hiring more officers was top of mind for him on his first day on the job. He also said the department needs more technology, such as drones to aid officers, and agreed with the mayor that collaboration with other departments would be key.
“It is a work in progress. I look forward to the challenge. I’m ready for the challenge,” he said.
Diaz’s goals fall cleanly in line with his boss’s public safety platform. In Whitmire’s inaugural speech in January, the mayor stressed the need to reverse a widening officer-to-citizen ratio, a nation-wide trend.
At the time, a Kinder Institute for Urban Research survey conducted in partnership with the Houston Landing showed that crime was Houstonians’ top concern going into the mayoral race, despite falling crime rates.
In January, some critics instead called for the expansion of alternatives to policing for Houstonians in trouble — such as violence interrupters and crisis call diversion programs — and favored taking a closer look at how officers spend their time rather than beefing up the force.
“We’re hoping that these are some things they start to take into consideration when they’re building their strategies and making these moves,” Sharia Legette, communications director at Pure Justice, told the Houston Landing on Friday. Pure Justice is a nonprofit that advocates for community-based responses to public safety and against police brutality.
At the news conference, Diaz said he would take a “no-holds-barred” approach to recruitment, emphasizing the need to reach out to the “talented kids” at local university criminal justice programs.
“If you have a 19 or 20-year-old child in your home that needs a job. Please contact the Houston Police Department. We need you,” he said.
Pressed on his ability to go from heading up fewer than 100 officers to thousands, Diaz touted his record working across many facets of law enforcement.
“Only thing I don’t know how to do is fly a helicopter, but I’m gonna work on it,” he said. “So, it’s just, it’s just one of those things that I’m trying to always garner information, make sure that we’re doing the right thing and making sure that we are providing exceptional services, which is the vision that the mayor has.”
In addition to introducing Diaz, Whitmire announced his acting Chief of Police, Larry Satterwhite, will head up the city’s Homeland Security office.
The mayor began Friday’s announcement by applauding the fact that oil behemoth Chevron would be moving its headquarters to Houston from California, which he said was a vote of confidence in his public safety initiatives.
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