The Houston Police Department has been led by more than two dozen chiefs since the early 1900s, and the current chief of Houston police is J. Noe Diaz, appointed by Mayor John Whitmire on August 14, 2024. HPD covers roughly 600 square miles, runs on an annual budget above $1 billion, and its chief answers directly to the mayor of the fourth-largest city in the country.
Who Is the Current Houston Police Chief
J. Noe Diaz took over on August 14, 2024. Mayor Whitmire selected him specifically to rebuild community trust and address a backlog scandal involving more than 250,000 cases that had been suspended due to staffing shortages, the same crisis that prompted his predecessor’s abrupt retirement.
Diaz came in with a career that moved through nearly every level of Texas law enforcement. He started working in a state prison, then joined the Harris County Precinct Five Constable’s Office before being selected for the Texas Department of Public Safety Academy. After training, he worked as a highway patrol trooper in the Katy area and then spent seven years in the state Narcotics Division, assigned to task forces alongside HPD, ATF, DEA, and the FBI.
In 2008 he was appointed as a Texas Ranger and served for more than a decade as the Public Corruption Ranger for Company A, which covers the greater Houston area. During that time he held top-secret clearance as a task force officer with the FBI’s Public Corruption Border Task Force. Immediately before his HPD appointment, he was chief of the Katy Police Department.
Houston Police Chiefs Since 1990
The modern era of HPD leadership is well documented. The chiefs who have run the department since 1990:
- Elizabeth “Betsy” Watson (1990–1992). Sworn in on February 8, 1990, Watson became the first woman to lead a police department in a major American city. She served a little over two years before a change in mayoral administration led to her reassignment as assistant chief.
- Sam Nuchia (1992–1997).
- C.O. “Clarence” Bradford (1997–2004). Sworn in in January 1997.
- Harold Hurtt (2004–2009). Came to HPD in March 2004.
- Charles McClelland (2010–2016). Capped a four-decade HPD career.
- Martha Montalvo (2016, interim). Served nearly a year during the transition to a permanent successor.
- Art Acevedo (2016–2021). Sworn in on November 30, 2016; left after about four and a half years to become chief in Miami.
- Troy Finner (2021–2024). A 30-year HPD veteran who took over in April 2021. He retired abruptly in May 2024 amid the suspended-cases scandal.
- J. Noe Diaz (2024–present).
Earlier Chiefs
Lee P. Brown led the department from 1982 to 1990 and developed what he called Neighborhood Oriented Policing, a community-policing program that influenced departments across the country. He later became mayor of Houston.
Herman Short ran HPD from 1964 to 1973, one of the longest tenures in the department’s history at nearly ten years. The chiefs who followed through the late 1970s included Carroll Lynn and P.G. Bond, though their exact dates are not well documented in publicly available records.
Jack Heard was appointed in 1954 and established the state’s first police narcotics division along with Houston’s first police substations. Carl Shuptrine followed around 1956.
Records of the earliest chiefs are fragmented and some dates are approximate. William Murphy served until around 1910. George Payton is recorded as chief from about 1913 to 1915, and T.C. Goodson followed through roughly 1917. A chief identified only as McPhail served around 1929. Percy Heard was sworn in as Superintendent of Police in 1930. B.W. Payne held the role at various points through the 1930s and 1940s, and a chief known as Morrison (likely Morrison F. Brown) took over around 1950.
How the Houston Police Chief Is Appointed
Under Article VI, Section 7a of the Houston City Charter, the mayor appoints the chief of police, subject to confirmation by a simple-majority vote of the Houston City Council. The mayor can remove the chief at any time without council approval. That one-sided arrangement is why changes in mayoral administration have so often triggered turnover at the top of HPD; the chief effectively serves at the mayor’s pleasure.
Legal Qualifications for the Job
Texas Local Government Code Section 143.013 sets the floor for anyone appointed to lead a police department in the state. The appointee must be eligible for certification by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement at the intermediate level or its equivalent, and must have at least five years of experience as a law enforcement officer.
Those are minimums. Every Houston chief in recent decades has arrived with substantially more experience and, in most cases, advanced certifications well beyond the intermediate level. The City Charter can add further qualifications by ordinance, and mayors have typically looked for candidates who have run large organizations at an executive level.
A claim sometimes circulates that the chief must live inside Houston’s city limits. No publicly available provision of the City Charter or state law clearly establishes that requirement, though residency terms may appear in an individual employment agreement or internal policy.