New police offices take their oath of office during the Houston Police Academy graduation of Cadet Class 256 on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023 in Houston. Mayor John Whitmire said the department is the largest it has been in the city’s history.
Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspap/Houston Chronicle via Getty Imag
While conversations around overtime spending, ICE involvement and officer controversies have dominated recent headlines surrounding the Houston Police Department, city leaders say one thing stands out as a positive: the department is now the largest in history.
“Morale in each department is at an all-time high,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said on his podcast, 901 Bagby: Inside the Mayor’s Office. “HPD now has 5,400 officers. That’s the most in Houston’s history.
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Whitmire offered a clearer picture of the department’s staffing growth, saying the HPD has grown by hundreds over the last two years.
“Since I’ve been sworn in, we’ve increased HPD by 800 officers,” Whitmire said. “100 cadets have been sworn in (and) 600 firefighters.”
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‘A minute matters:’ Declining response times
Whitmire said law enforcement’s response time has gotten better since he assumed the office.
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“Response time on Code 1, the most serious crimes, is 5.6 minutes,” Whitmire said. “I was robbed at gunpoint in ’92, begged for my life in my garage, so I know what a minute matters.”
In February, the Houston Chronicle reported that response times improved slightly after roughly $1 billion in taxpayer funding boosted HPD pay by 36.5 percent in raises and shifted officers from community affairs to patrol.
The average response time decreased from 6.2 minutes in 2024 to six minutes in 2025, according to the Chronicle. Slight declines were seen for Priority 1 and 2 calls, while more significant improvements were seen with Priority 3, 4 and 5 calls.
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“We’re … still not satisfied with those crime statistics but we’re headed in the right direction,” Whitmire said.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire speaks during a forum on animal welfare held by Houston PetSet Monday, Sept. 25, 2023 in Houston. Whitmire said the department is the largest it has been in the city’s history.
Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspap/Houston Chronicle via Getty Imag
Declining murder rate, suspended cases
Podcast host Owen Conflenti referred to one specific metric as a “big public safety win” for the city and its departments: the murder rate declining by roughly 36 percent based on first quarter comparisons.
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The murder rate declined 36.4 percent between the first quarter of 2025 and 2026, according to HPD’s March 2026 statistics report. The number fell from 77 in the first quarter of 2025 to 49 in the first quarter of 2026, according to a recent report from the Master Cities Chiefs Association.
“I’ll be the first to admit that crime is down across our nation,” Whitmire said, adding that Houston has tackled its own unique challenges.
In particular, the mayor touched on a substantial case backlog and retention challenges.
“My second month of being sworn in, I had a call that we had 260,000 … suspended HPD cases that had never been investigated or pursued,” Whitmire said. “That was an extreme situation. It took leadership—we had to take 80 officers off the street to spend full time for several months investigating those cases.”
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Whitmire also said the department was struggling with retention and recruitment.
“We had that challenge and we were certainly understaffed,” Whitmire said. “HPD and Houston Fire, morale was at an all-time low, we were losing more officers to retirement than we were able to recruit. All of that has changed.”