Southwest
Houston police chief replaced amid investigation into hundreds of thousands of dropped cases
Houston’s mayor has replaced the city’s police chief, saying Wednesday it was the best thing for a law enforcement agency that’s still under intense scrutiny over why hundreds of thousands of cases were never investigated, including more than 4,000 sexual assault allegations.
Mayor John Whitmire said he did not push out former Police Chief Troy Finner but accepted his retirement as the police department needed to move forward under new leadership.
During a news conference, Whitmire said the ongoing investigation and questions of what Finner knew and when were having a cumulative impact “on the morale in the department, the focus of the officers and the confidence that Houstonians need to have in their police department.”
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Whitmire, who took office in January, had expressed confidence in Finner after the chief revealed in February that more than 264,000 incident reports in the past eight years were never submitted for investigation as officers assigned them an internal code that cited a lack of available personnel.
Finner had said he ordered his command staff in a November 2021 meeting to stop using it after learning of its existence. Despite this, he said, he learned on Feb. 7 of this year that it was still being used to dismiss a significant number of adult sexual assault cases.
Whitmire’s confidence in Finner seemed to quickly end this week after Houston television stations reported Tuesday that Finner had been informed about the dismissed incident reports in a 2018 email.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner speaks to the media on Feb. 18, 2024, in Houston. Houston police said on April 11, 2024, they were still reviewing if DNA testing done in connection with thousands of sex crime cases that were dropped over staff shortages. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
Whitmire called the discovery of the email the “final straw.”
“The bottom line is the department is being distracted due to issues with the investigation … from its primary mission of fighting crime,” Whitmire told city council members. He appointed assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite as acting chief.
In a late Wednesday afternoon post on the social platform X, Finner did not address his sudden retirement. He called the last few months of his career “the most challenging” and “painful” because “some victims of violent crime did not receive the quality care and service they deserved.”
“But, it was beneficial because we implemented measures to ensure this never happens again,” Finner said on the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Our department and our profession will be better because of it.”
During a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Satterwhite was asked by reporters about when he first learned that cases were being dismissed because of a lack of personnel.
Satterwhite, who has been with the police department for 34 years, said he briefly attended the November 2021 meeting where Finner told his command staff to stop using the code but left as he was focused on other duties. Satterwhite said that sometime in late 2023 or earlier this year, he might have heard something about the code related to a specific case but it wasn’t until later that he learned of the magnitude of the problem.
“We as an agency … on this one failed,” Satterwhite said.
Satterwhite said becoming acting chief has been difficult under these circumstances as he and Finner are longtime friends and attended the police academy together.
“I’m going to do my best to make it better and then we shall see,” Satterwhite said.
Finner had apologized in March about the use of the internal code to dismiss the incident reports and had said he would be transparent and truthful in the ongoing investigation.
Regarding the 2018 email made public this week, Finner posted a statement on X saying he did not remember that email until he was shown a copy of it on Tuesday.
“Even though the phrase ‘suspended lack of personnel’ was included in the 2018 email, there was nothing that alerted me to its existence as a code or how it was applied within the department,” Finner wrote.
Several city council members on Wednesday expressed gratitude for Finner, who joined the Houston police department in 1990 and became chief in 2021. City Councilor Carolyn Evans-Shabazz said she misses him already.
“His efforts have significantly contributed to our community’s safety and wellbeing,” Evans-Shabazz said.
After Finner made public the department’s use of the internal code to dismiss these cases, Whitmire launched a review by an independent panel. Whitmire said he hoped the panel could provide a public update next week.
The Houston Area Women’s Center, Houston’s largest non-profit supporting victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, declined to comment Wednesday on Finner’s retirement. But in a social media post in February, it said sexual assault survivors “pay a high price” when investigations aren’t clearly resolved.
Police departments around the country are facing an urgent staffing crisis as many younger officers resign and older officers retire, according to an August report by the Police Executive Research Forum. Applications to fill vacancies plummeted amid a national reckoning over how police respond to minorities.
An April 27 report by the same Washington-based think tank found more encouraging numbers.
“Small and medium agencies now have more sworn officers than they had in January 2020,” according to the forum’s report. “In large agencies, sworn staffing slightly increased during 2023, but it is still more than 5% below where it was in January 2020.”
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Southwest
Savannah Guthrie spotted in NYC as search for missing mother enters sixth week with few answers
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TUCSON, Ariz. — “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie is back in New York City as the search for her missing mother enters its sixth week with little publicly known progress in her hometown of Tucson, Arizona.
Guthrie was photographed in public for the first time since her mother’s suspected abduction, alongside husband Mike Feldman and their young son in the Big Apple Sunday, days after an emotional reunion with her NBC colleagues and more than a month after her 84-year-old mother Nancy was last seen.
Nancy’s disappearance shocked the country — especially when the FBI released disturbing surveillance video of a masked man on her doorstep.
Savannah Guthrie spent weeks in Tucson with her siblings as the investigation played out — before she and her older sister, Annie, added bouquets of yellow flowers to a growing display at the foot of their mother’s driveway. She quietly flew home to New York last week.
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Savannah Guthrie is seen out in New York with her husband Michael Feldman as the “Today” show anchor makes her first public appearance more than five weeks after the suspected abduction of her mother, Nancy Guthrie. (ASPN / BACKGRID)
Sunday marked five weeks since the suspected kidnapping.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is leading the investigation, which is now being overseen by a task force consisting of local detectives and FBI agents.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
No suspects have been publicly identified.
A masked man who appeared on Nancy Guthrie’s Nest doorbell camera around the time authorities said she was taken is described as being of average height and build and carrying a black Ozark Trail backpack.
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Savannah Guthrie and her mother, Nancy Guthrie, are pictured Thursday, June 15, 2023. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
He appeared to be armed with a handgun as well. Law enforcement sources said he visited Nancy Guthrie’s home at least once in advance of her disappearance, wearing a similar disguise.
Other identifying details are scarce.
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The use of cadaver dogs is also on hold, according to authorities, who re-canvassed Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood as recently as last week.
When asked if that meant they believed she is still alive, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos declined to discuss evidence in the case.
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“Anything is possible,” he told Fox News Digital.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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There’s a reward of more than $1.2 million in play for information that leads to Nancy’s recovery.
Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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Southwest
FBI subpoenas 2020 Arizona voting docs as federal push into election administration widens
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An Arizona state lawmaker revealed Monday that federal authorities subpoenaed him for records related to the 2020 election, marking the second publicly confirmed jurisdiction the Department of Justice is investigating over the matter.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, said in a social media post he received the subpoena for material related to the state Senate’s 2020 audit last week and complied with it.
“Late last week I received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records relating to the Arizona State Senate’s 2020 audit of Maricopa County,” Petersen wrote. “The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news.”
The request represents an expansion of a federal probe tied to 2020 after the DOJ initially targeted Fulton County, Georgia. The development also comes as President Donald Trump has grown increasingly outspoken about election security in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms, renewing his attention on disputes stemming from the last presidential race.
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An election worker removes a ballot from an envelope to count and inspect the pages inside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Petersen made the revelation after President Donald Trump shared a Just the News report about the subpoena on Truth Social, writing, “Great!!! FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona’s largest county as voting probe expands.”
Multiple U.S. officials confirmed the election probe to Fox News, saying the DOJ is looking at a large tranche of Arizona data from 2020 and 2024.
President Donald Trump listens during an event about the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
The White House directed Fox News Digital to the FBI on Monday when asked for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an elected Democrat, said the new investigation was based on claims that courts and state investigators have proven wrong.
“What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry,” Mayes said in a statement. “It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.”
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Attendees listen as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) speaks at an “Only Citizens Vote” bus tour rally advocating passage of the SAVE Act at Upper Senate Park outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on Sept. 10, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
The subpoena comes as the president increasingly focuses on election security ahead of the 2026 midterms, telling Congress in a social media post on Sunday that he will not sign any legislation into law until it passes the SAVE America Act.
The bill’s primary purpose is to require voters nationwide to show physical identification to prove citizenship to vote in federal elections. The version of the bill Trump is pushing would also ban mail-in ballots except for the military and in other extenuating circumstances.
Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, was a hotbed for accusations of voter fraud in 2020. Fulton County, Georgia, faced similar accusations, with the DOJ launching a separate investigation into the 2020 election earlier this year.
Trump lost Arizona in 2020 by about 0.3 percentage points. The president refused to concede, and his legal team brought a series of lawsuits alleging vote-counting irregularities, but none were successful.
Fox News’ David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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Southwest
Wisconsin man who fled Border Patrol checkpoint in stolen car killed after shootout in Texas, police say
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FIRST ON FOX: A Wisconsin man driving a stolen vehicle was killed Wednesday after he fled through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint and led authorities on a vehicle chase and shootout in Texas.
The incident happened at around 10:30 a.m. at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint in the Big Bend Sector between El Paso and Van Horn, a remote area.
James Douglas McMillan, 33, of Greenfield, Wis., took off from the checkpoint after a Border Patrol drug K-9 alerted to the vehicle and agents directed McMillan to pull over for a secondary search, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
A migrant walks through the Rio Grande as he crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, March 13, 2024, in El Paso, Texas. On Wednesday, a man was shot and killed by authorities near El Paso after fleeing through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. (John Moore/Getty Images)
During the car chase, McMillan opened fire out of his vehicle window at DPS troopers and other authorities from several law enforcement agencies and civilian vehicles, DPS said.
“As law enforcement returned fire, DPS Troopers performed a precision immobilization technique (PIT) maneuver and successfully stopped the suspect vehicle,” a DPS statement said.
McMillan barricaded himself in his vehicle and eventually pointed his weapon towards officers, prompting officers to open fire, authorities said.
He was shot and killed. No law enforcement officers or civilians were hurt.
Investigators determined McMillan was driving a vehicle reported stolen in Arizona. The shooting is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, with assistance from the FBI and USBP.
The shooting involved Border Patrol agents and DPS troopers. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)
In January, a man suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants was shot by federal officers during a gunfire exchange in Arizona.
Patrick Gary Schlegel, 34, fled from authorities on foot and allegedly shot at a CBP helicopter and at agents, Heith Janke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix Division, said at the time.
A U.S. Border Patrol officer watches a USBP helicopter. (Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)
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Schlegal, a U.S. citizen from Arizona, underwent surgery and survived. No one else was harmed, authorities said.
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