11:05 PM CDT on Tuesday, July 11, 2006

By Jeff McShan / 11 News

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Houston’s police chief will soon find out exactly what his officers think of him.

KHOU-TV

Over 2,000 surveys sent to union members have been returned. Results should be released next week.

11 News was able to see some of the results of a police union survey that won’t be released until next week.

When Harold Hurtt was named Houston’s police chief on February 24 ^th 2004, the largest police union (HPOU) was optimistic about the department’s future.

But that has all changed.

More than 2,000 surveys sent out last month have been returned.

They were sent out by HPOU to basically see if its members still have faith in their chief.

“We’re approaching half the Houston police department responding to this, and took the time to add in comments to support what their evaluation was,” said Mark Clark, Exec. Director.

Clark is the union’s executive director.

He says the final results will be presented to the mayor and city council next week.

But 11 News was allowed a sneak preview and had open access to the survey results for nearly an hour. It was difficult to find anything positive about HPD’s current management team.

“We’ve been asked ‘What are you trying to do, get the chief fired?’, and all we’re trying to do is to communicate to the mayor and council that it was important to the mayor when he was first elected what officers with the Houston Police Department thought. It should be just as important today,” said Clark.

Some of the comments we came across when asked if HPD leadership is doing a good job were:

“The chief is not a leader, he is a dictator”.

“He is heavy handed”, meaning that the person believes Hurtt has fired too many people.

Another one read, “Chief Hurtt is focused only on his image”.

“Chief Hurtt is focused only on his image”.