Lee Patrick Brown (born October 4, 1937) is an American politician, criminologist and businessman; in 1997 he was the first African-American to be elected mayor of Houston, Texas.

[1] He has had a long career in law enforcement and academia; leading police departments in Atlanta, Houston and New York over the course of nearly four decades.

His family, including five brothers and one sister, moved to California in the second wave of the Great Migration and his parents continued as farmers.

Brown went on to earn a master's degree in sociology from San José State University in 1964, and became an assistant professor there in 1968.

Old-time officers saw it as simply reverting to a long-discredited policy of "walking a beat," and claimed the acronym meant "never on patrol.

Brown emphasized through his officer training sessions that getting feedback from the public was as important as writing up tickets or doing paperwork chores.

He was quoted as saying that sixty percent of all cities in the U.S. had adopted some form of NOP by the time he stepped down as Houston's chief.

At the time, the force was 75% white; there were issues of perception of police justice and sensitivity in a city with a population estimated to be half minorities: black, Hispanic and Asian.

The fact that reported crimes were 6.7 percent lower for the first four months of 1992, compared to the previous year, indicated that Brown's program was having a positive effect, according to the Treadwell article.

Dinkins had appointed a five-member panel to investigate the corruption allegations, and had asked the City Council to establish an all-civilian review board to look at charges of police brutality.

Brown stated that he was leaving to care for his wife, who was ill, and to rejoin the rest of his family, who were still in Houston.

In 2001 Brown narrowly survived the reelection challenge and runoff against Sanchez, a Cuban-born man who grew up in Houston.

Sanchez' supporters highlighted poor street conditions, campaigning that the "P stands for Pothole," referring to Brown's middle initial.

"[11] Following the death of Houston Fire Captain Jay Janhke in the line of duty, Sanchez gained endorsements from the fire/emergency medical services sector.

[14][15] Brown narrowly won reelection by a margin of three percentage points following heavy voter turnout in predominantly Black precincts, compared to relatively light turnout in Hispanic precincts, although Hispanic voting in the runoff election was much higher than previously.

Brown's 2001 reelection was one of the last major political campaigns supported by the Houston-based Enron Corporation, which collapsed in a financial scandal days after the election.