HOUSTON (Covering Katy News)—Katy Police Chief Noe Diaz will be introduced Friday morning as Houston's new Police Chief at Houston City Hall according to a letter from the Houston Mayor John Whitmire to the Houston City Council.
Diaz will succeed interim Chief Larry Satterwhite, who was appointed following Chief Troy Finner's departure earlier this year. Finner retired following revelations that the department used a code to suspend more than 264,000 incident reports, effectively denying justice to crime victims. Former Mayor Sylvester Turner selected Finner to run HPD, and his tenure continued into the Whitmire administration.
Diaz first day on the job at HPD will be August 14. Satterwhite will become the director of the Mayor's Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security.
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Diaz began his career as a correctional officer with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 1986. He became a Deputy Constable in Harris County Precinct 5 in 1994 and joined the Texas Department of Public Safety in 1996. He became a Texas Ranger in January 2008.
Diaz earned his bachelor's degree in criminal justice/political science from the University of Houston-Downtown in 2011 and his master's degree in criminology from Lamar University in 2014. He completed the FBI National Academy in 2016.
Diaz was the fourth Police Chief in Katy's history, following Pat Adams, E.L. "Buddy" Frazier, and Bill Hastings.
Adams served as Chief from 1967-1996. He died on July 23. R.L. "Buddy" Frazier served as Chief from 1996-2009. He died in 2018. Bill Hastings served as Chief from 2009-19 and was elected Mayor in 2019, serving one term. Diaz was appointed by then-Mayor Chuck Brawner and confirmed by the city council in 2019 to succeed Hastings.