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Please also see: Police Service Area 108's Crime Page.
Last updated 15 June 1998
3 January 1998
Last year, a confluence of historic, economic and governmental forces
essentially forced a restructuring of the government of the City of
Washington, DC. Decades of mismanagement forced change after change, with
the most visible changes taking place within the Metropolitan Police. For
more-complete coverage, please see the 1997
Washington DC Page. The changes, which are ongoing, dealt with not only
chronic problems engrained in the institution, but also with acute
incidents, leading to massive restructurings of the top-brass levels of the
District Police. 1997 saw the emergence of information which indicated
entrenched corruption, sloth and occasionally abysmal incompetence in the
Homicide Division, and entire chains-of-command have been re-assigned,
dismissed outright, or forced into early retirement or
resignation-under-pressure. This included the Chief of Police, Larry
Soulsby. Our new Acting Chief of Police, one Sonya T. Proctor, is continuing
her efforts to rebuild the reputation of the Metropolitan Police Department,
which was at one time regarded as the pride of the Nation but which has, due
to recent events and disclosures, sufferd an extreme crisis of
public-confidence.
An nationwide search is now underway for a permanent Chief of Police. Ms
Proctor is under consideration for the position. She notes that whether or
not she is confirmed in her position, or will be working under a new chief
selected from outside of Washington, she intends to stick with the force and
do her best to "do the right thing".
Among her goals, which received high praise from all ranks of City
officialdom, included:
Acting-Chief Proctor notes that many forces, including a nationwide drop in
reported crimes, in particular violent crimes, has been reflected into the
District as well.
Crimes against property have declined by roughly one-quarter, and assaults
with deadly weapons was down by 9 percent.
In 1997, for instance, for the first time in decades, the District reported
less than one murder-per-day on average. Last year, there were only 301
deaths in the District which were classified as homicides. There is,
however, an extreme and ongoing problem with the Medical Examiner's office,
which has very substandard facilities and is grossly understaffed. It has
been derided as essentially a laughingstock in the profession, by
national-level forensic pathologists. There has been, and there is ongoing,
considerable debate as to the District's criteria for classification of
deaths as "undetermined", which should more-probably be considered murders.
The reported murder figures for the District may be somewhat skewed by this
discrepancy in reporting. But there is no question that a vastly-increased
police presence on Washington's streets over the last four months has
greatly reduced the former open-warfare situation in the District's streets
to a more sedate and orderly state. At long last, criminals are starting to
think twice about pulling out a pistol and gunning people down. When at last
the DC Medical Examiner's Office is brought up to civilized standards, they
might have to think twice about using other technologies to settle beefs, as
well.
Acting Chief Proctor announced 2 January 1998 that she was reassigning some
of her top brass. The new positions are
The Metropolitan Police Department has decided to reverse the Homicide
Department's decentralization policy.
The decentralization, which occurred starting 1 July 1997 under the
leadership of then-chief Larry Soulsby, was intended to better-familiarize
homicide officers with the communities in which they'd be conducting
investigations. However, it seems that a great many homicides are solved by
a wide sharing of information throughout the homicide department, quite
often through informal "kibitzing" where elements of one case suddenly mesh
with elements of another case, leading to sudden and unexpected mergers of
disparate trails of evidence and circumstance, leading to case-solving.
Smaller, widely-deployed units have indeed increased detective familiarity
with their "turfs" but have also apparently resulted in compartmentalization
of information, since there are now few opportunities for "kibitzing", in
effect leading to an unintended "compartmentalization of information". Also,
the small size of the decentralized units has decreased the numbers of
investigators available to respond to any given homicide. Under centralized
conditions, as many as ten investigators might be available to respond to
any given homicide and thus one investogator might follow each particular
aspect of thread of investigation, such as collecting witness statements,
checking background, next-of-kin notification, and so forth - but under
decentralization, there were on any given shift too-few investigators for a
full division of these tasks, and thus one investigator might find himself
following several different threads and being unable to fully devote
themselves to complete execution of any given thread.
Evidently this is leading to considerable burnout of investigators. Even
though overtime is presently restricted (and high-scrutinized after the
immense overtime-scam of last fall), intense caseloading and understaffing
are taking their toll.
There will remain some degree of decentralization, as there have been
positive aspects of the move, mostly due to increased familiarity with the
locales and the "characters" in those locales. However, these benefits are
outweighed somewhat by the factors of compartmentalization-of-information
and of overwork in the various police districts.
The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, in 28 January 1998,
charged Darryl Donnell Turner, of Princeton Place NW in the Petworth
neighborhood, with the murders of Jacqueline Teresa Birch (age 39) and Dana
Hill (age 34).
Turner arrived in Washington roughly eight years ago, and was for several
years one of the many homeless. That changed when he got married. Turner is
presently unemployed.
Princeton Place NW, at the heart of the troubled Petworth neighborhood, has
been the center of a cluster of at least six homicides recently.
Long-devastated by Metrorail construction, the weakened neighborhood social
structure bacame a playground of sorts for the outcasts and underclass. the
alleys became overgrown jungles of waste, wreckage, disabled vehicles, and
many vacant buildings have become overrun with squatters, and often were
also "shooting galleries" where dopers gather to partake, and women trade
their bodies for just one more hit. The city is cleaning up this mess as of
now, but before there was awareness that this seemed to be the stalking
grounds of a serial killer, the "squats" were piled high with filth,
garbage, and old mattresses pulled from the dumpsters for the use of the
"crack whores" (as they are known in the local slang). Human waste, along
with an HIV-infected gantlet of discarded heroin syringes, is another
hazard to the unwary.
Turner was charged with these two murders after DNA samples obtained from
him matched the DNA of semen found in the bodies of the two victims.
Turner's attorney is quick to point out that the fact that he had sex with
these women, and that they were killed shortly thereafter, does not
necessarily mean that Turner was the killer. The other four victims were not
so easily checked for evidence. Possibly the most compelling evidence to
implicate Turner is almost completely circumstantial and cannot as-yet be
forensically linked to him. The body was found beneath a crawlspace
of a building adjacent to Turner's residence, however the state of
decomposition at the time of discovery was so advanced as to preclude
reliable DNA testing.
Police are quick to note that they are pursuing other investigatory angles.
It is after all quite possible that Turner actually did only have sex with
the women, and that they were later killed by another person or persons.
Sex, drugs, and violence go together hand-in-hand in endlessly repeated
cycles of viciousness in the streets of Petworth. It's not at all uncommon
for a woman to prostitute herself to several different men per night, moving
to the one who has drugs now, to move on to another when that man's supply
runs out. It is quite possible that the dead women had sex with several
different men that night, but so far, of those men, only Turner has so-far
been found, to give a sample of DNA which matched the a fraction of the
semen in the women.
It is also quite possible that one or more of the women whose deaths
comprise the cluster centered around Petworth, were murdered by different
men. As lowly and despicable as might be a homeless alley junkie, they can
and do despise the "crack whores" and months or years of desparation, abuse,
and being reviled quite-commonly pushes men to the breaking point, which
threshold might well have been for most of these men, already fairly low.
Considering to what degree such persons had taken up residence in the alleys
outside the homes of Petworth, one might statistically suspect that there
might be very many such men quite close to the edge, and such a
concentration of desperation and filth in one smallish neighborhood might
well have caused six separate murders to appear to be the geographical
clustering of a serial-killer.
If this is the case, than no single individual will stand revealed as the
Petworth killer... the killer will stand revealed, rather, as Petworth
itself.
Mayor Marion Barry is narrowing the field of applicants for the vacant
position of Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department. The position has
been vacant since Chief Larry Soulsbly resigned under increasing pressure
following the Federal indictment of his room-mate, Jeffrey Stowe, on charges
including embezzlement from the Witnes Protection funds, misuse of police
facilities and equipment and also of attempting to extort money fropm
married gay men who were tracked at local gay-bars.
One Sonya T. Proctor has been serving as Acting Chief, and by all
accounts, has been doing a fine job. However mthere does seem to be some
concensus among observers nationwide that in systems which are plagued by
either corruption, or by suspicion of corruption, new management should be
brought in from outside the department. Acting Chief Proctor is, by many
accounts, already something of an outsider within the MPD. Well-respected as
a competent and no-nonsense officer who rose through the ranks on the basis
of diligence and perseverance, she is still regarded by many officers as
being less than personable, and somewhat aloof. In the present culture of
Washington City Government, this can only be seen as an asset when it comes
to rooting out corruption or the appearance of corruption. However, as a
lifelong District resident, she might be presumed to inject local attitude
and city political rationales into any decisions.
A nationwide "talent-search" has been ongoing for some time. Among those
tapped for a shot at the position was former Chief Richard Pennington, who
left Washington to take over the New Orleans police force. At the time, the
NOPD was considered possibly the most corrupt of any US major-city police
forces, and the Department of Justice and the FBI brought to light case
after case of corruption, of both endemic entrenched and the equally-endemic
freelance variety. Working closely with Chief Pennington was the FBI's James
Desarno, a deputy director of the top-rate Criminal Justice Information
Center. While Chief Pennington has expressed a desire to finish the job he's
started with cleaning up New Orleans, Desarno reportedly is very interested
in moving into the position of Chief of the MPD. His close alliances with
Pennington (and Pennington's invaluable insights into the inner workings of
the MPD) would combine with his experience both a CJIC and his experience
working with an FBI task force investigating campaign-contribution
irregularities in the District. In a city driven to the brink of total
collapse by the Barry-Cronies (tm) administration there might be few possible
better choices.
Yet due to a loophole in the DCFRA Control
Board's mandate, the one person who could be considered ultimately
most-responsible for any corruption that does exist in the City of
Washington or its police department, Mayor Marion Barry, is responsible for
the final selection of the candidate for Chief of Police. Mayor Barry does
not run the department any longer, in fact that was one of the first major
Departments stripped from his control by the DCFRA in the state of
near-emergency that existed throughout 1996 and 1997 - however, he does
retain the power to select the new police chief.
Correction to previous substantive error:
Among others who have indicated interest in the position are former Los Angeles
Police Chief Willie Williams. He's certainly experienced at running a large
metropolitan police force, having been the successor to Daryl F. Gates,
under whose leadership the LA force acquired a reputation for open racism,
culminating in the Rodney King beatings and subsequent riots, after which
Williams was appointed.
Another candidate is former New York police commissioner William Bratton, by
all accounts a major modernizing force in that city's comeback from a state
of crime-ridden chaos, and also Charleston SC police chief Reuben Greenberg.
Greenberg did not apply for the position, but he has been sought-after by
the executive-search agency, Norman Roberts Co., which was retained for the
talent-search, as a top-flight potential candidate.
Also, on a note of closure, or lack thereof, last fall after the discovery
that one Captain Alan Dreher had for over a year "sat on" a report by the
National Drug Intelligence Center which (had it been acted-upon immediately)
might have closed something like half of the older murder cases, a
task-force was created to follow up on those leads. But the iron was not
struck while hot, and to date, only 8 of some 107 remaining killings have
been "closed".
22 February 1998
Retiring under duress were Commander Reggie Smith, Commander Winfred
Stanley, and Commander John C. Daniels.
Smith, a 27-year veteran of the force, has for the last two years commanded
the 5th District in Northeast Washington, where over the last year there has
been a drop in reported crime of nearly 50 percent. Stanley, also with the
force for 27 years, was head of the 3rd District, in Northwest Washington,
in roughly the Adams-Morgan area, where
reported crime dropped by some 18 percent. Daniels,
also with the force for 27 years, was head of the 6th District in Southease
and Northeast Washington, where crime was reported down by about 19 percent.
Proctor has made quite a few personnel changes since she acceded to
leadership roughly Thanksgiving of 1997, after the abrupt resignation of
chief Larry Soulsby in the midst of a mounting scandal regarding widespread
corruption in the police department. Among other moves, appointed to the
position of inspector are: Joseph J. Adamany; Lloyd L. Coward; William P.
McManus; and Stanley Wigenton. Promoted to positions of captain are: Jose
Acosta; Brian Jordan; and Michael J. Radzilowski.
Some demotions or "lateral transfers" have also occurred under Proctor's
leadership, most notably the transfer of Assistant Chief Rodney Monroe from
the helm of Patrol Services to a position at Support Services. He was
replaced by a longtime friend of Proctor, one Assistant Chief Robert C.
White, a former commander of the 4th District who had retired in 1995.
Proctor has also promoted one Commander Ross Swope to the helm of the
Homicide Division.
The the middle of the next week, a storm of protest and generic outrage had
begun to swirl around these personnel changes. One Leroy Thorpe (Advisory
Neighborhood Commissioner and police critic) said that he had seen this
coming, having stated that he was of the opinion that Sonya Proctor had a
problem with black males and was insecure, and further says that the black
men that he named as being good police officials are the exact men that
Proctor singled out for dismissals. Proctor herself is black.
Further, newly-declared Mayoral candidate Kevin P. Chavous (Ward 7
Democrat) quickly questioned the legitimacy of the ousters, noting the
crime-reduction figures in the Police Districts headed by the ousted
officials. Proctor was also denounced for having fired the three men without
any input from any of the local lawmakers or advisory councils.
The strongest and most legitimate criticisms of Proctor's personnel changes
have been those which pivot around her own possibly-temporary position as
Acting Chief. At this time, there is a "short-list" of candidates awaiting
final selection by Mayor Barry and the "Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
Partners. Most critics believe that any personnel changes such as have been
made by Proctor ought to be made by the new Chief. Proctor herself is on the
short-list, but there is a wide consensus throughout most levels of
government and also throughout the national police-management communities
that when a department is considered corrupt, any housecleaning is best done
by a complete stranger to the department, someone hired from the outside.
But Proctor has long been considered an outsider by many in the force, and
often has been characterized as aloof and stand-offish, and while none have
had any complaints about her performance, she has also been characterized as
"not a team player". However, in a police department considered by many to
be tainted by corruption throughout all levels of management and through
many levels of the "harness bulls" or street-level officers, being "not a
team player" could be considered as a compliment indicating that she might
be one of the few totally-clean cops in Washington. She was certainly
respected as a competent commander when she was in charge of the 3rd
District, gaining a reputation as a solid administrator with a high regard
to human and civil rights.
Proctor defended her actions by saying that the issues were not political
issues, but performance issues: "It's how the department delivers its
services". She had earlier stated that she never intended to be a mere
caretaker or "placeholder" in this position but would instead be very
active and has taken a very strong position against corruption in the
department. She'd also stated recently that she was concerned with moving
the department in a new direction. The exact direction has not yet been
specified.
24 March 1998
Prior to the arrest, amid widespread public speculation that there was a
bona-fide serial killer operating in the area, police oficials had
made statements that they did not believe that the series of six known
deaths was the work of a single killer, but possibly the work of two or more
killers, who simply operated in the same territory with similar
modi-operandi. But after the arrest, police and prosecutors appeared
to be convinced that they had indeed apprehended a person who they expected
to prove as the responsible actor.
While there are powerful circumstantial linkages between the arrested party
and two of the victims, little evidence has been made public linking the
arrestee, one Darryl Donnell Turner, of Princeton Place NW in the Petworth
neighborhood, with the other murders in a similar modus-operandum.
Turner's attorney states that Turner did indeed have sex with the murdered
women, leading to the best of the circumstantial evidence for the charges of
murder, semen which is a DNA-testing matches to Turner.
However, one of the best means for tracking and identifying serial killers,
through a process of elimination involving checking which persons fitting
"profile" could not have committed the crime due to that best of alibis,
being locked up in jail elsewhere, is tending to eliminate Turner as the
sole actor in this series of similar murders of similar victims. Turner is
still in jail awaiting trial with no possibility of bond.
And yesterday, for the second time in four months, in the same apartment
complex near Mount Vernon Square NW, a woman has been found dead, naked from
the waist down.
Serial killers quite frequently target prostitutes or promiscuous women.
It's a very classic profile. Another classic of serial killer mentation is
that they are often quite scornful of police. According to an article in the
Washington Post Metro
section on 2 March 1998, they may have had some cause to be scornful. The
Post article indicates that even after police had begun to focus
their investigation upon Turner (25 November 1997), he had allegedly killed
the second woman with whose death he as charged (1 December 1997), and also
allegedly sexually-assaulted another woman (a former girlfriend, 25 January
1998).
Some of the murdered women lived a lifestyle characterized as "crack
whores", and police are as a rule reluctant to care much about them. They,
and other "ladies of easy virtue" are not a policeman's favorite custimer,
as they may be one day arrested for solicitation, on another for minor or
major drug charges, and may the next day make a complaint over violence done
them by their pimp, rivals, associates, dealers or customers. Their life is
not an easy one, nor is the life of any officer who allows himself to regard
them as anything other than royal pains. In fact, early on in the Petworth
killings investigation, one officer was brought to task when he, at a
community meeting, referred to the victims as "crack whores". Held in the
disregard of the police, they make the ideal victim. Murderous psychoses
aside, this is one of the reasons that they are one of the most common
targets of serial killers.
The site of the second murder, or at least the location where the body was
found, was a stairwell inside the Mount Vernon Plaza apartments at 10th and
"M" Streets NW. This is not far from the Mt. Vernon Square or the extant
Convention Center, both favorite stomping grounds for local prostitutes. A
few blocks away is the start of some particularly grim and grimy housing
around 7th Street and New York Avenue NW. This, like the Petworth
neighborhood, is a zone infested with poverty and filth, with the
traditional "rats as big as cats", trash-strewn alleys, decaying city
properties and ubiquitous skulker in the dark.
The Shaw Neighborhood (of which this is the southern end) has long been one
of the more blighted landscapes to which dismayed locals may point when
decrying the magnitude of the contrasts between Federal Washington's icons
of national grandeur and the decay and dissolution of the city proper. Not
far from the site of the murdfer is the infamous "Graveyard of the Ho's",
where the AIDS-infected transvestite streetwalkers ply their decadent trade.
The rest of the neighborhood is not that much more lively. However, there
are always those decent and respectable people who like to live close to
their jobs. And according to an article in today's Post, they are
increasingly at risk of being mistaken for the preferred targets of those
who prey upon the destitute, the addicted, and the prostitutes. The
Post notes that on 8 August 1997, a resident in the Mount Vernon
Square apartments was accosted at knifepoint and strangled unconscious in
the building's supposedly-secure parking garage, leading some to believe
that the perpetrators (presumably one and the same) of the two murders at
the location might be local to the complex, perhaps a resident or associated
with the management.
The MPD took a report of this and classified it as a robbery with a knife.
One hopes that they will look into similarly-described crimes and see if
they can develop a pattern out of this. It may indeed eventually be
discovered that Turner, charged with some of the murders in Petworth, was
indeed just a local sex-fiend taking advantage of the local "crack-whores"
in Petworth... and after he was done with them, they walked straight into
the strangler's hands.
When the DCFRA Control Board
assumed almost total control of the Metropolitan Police Department, the
state of afairs was such that only one out of ten officers had actually
written a ticket or made an arrest, with most officers simply not out on a
beat. Also, the police fleet was grossly disabled, with half of the cars
inoperable or nearly inoperable due to poor maintenance, with the evidence
facility characterized as "a shambles" and the information and
communications system for the entire force was "antiquated, where functional
at all". More details may be seen on the 1997 Washington,
Not a pretty Site Page.
The Federal government and the Control board responded by pumping a vast
amount of money into the system. This has indeed immensely revitalized the
police fleet, with new cruisers seen everywhere, complete with spiffed-up
paint jobs and a new color scheme. Officers do have better communications,
though they are said to be still a generation behind the standards of other
American police forces.
The City of Washington has long been plagued by a systemic sloth when it
comes to securing the vast resources of the Federal Government, which
extends to all cities and communities certain grants. All one need really do
is to apply for them, and to document the expenditures. Washington has in
the past proved to be largely incompetent at both filling out the paperwork
to secure the grants, and in documenting the expenditures. Recent changes
have to some degree ameliorated this trend. Unfortunately, there has also
been a systematic failure, once the money has been secured, to allocate it
properly, or to assure procurement and delivery of the goods for which those
grants have made. Quite commonly during the two decades of the
Barry-Cronies(tm) administrations, funds granted to one City Agency have
wound up being "slushed" into other agencies, where questionable
book-keeping practices have resulted in all of that money vanishing into a
black hole of utter unaccountability.
Some agencies have made great strides in improving their grants-application,
procurement, and documentation processes, but the Metropolitan Police
Department is not one of them. Rocked by scandal late last year, with some
homicide detectives scamming twice their annual salary in overtime, with the
indictment of the roommate of then-chief Larry Soulsby on extortion charges
and charges of misuse of department facilities and equipment and
embezzlement of police funds, the Department has come under intense scrutiny
from various legal and community organizations. It is probably due only to
this scrutiny that we now find that in fiscal 1997 (which ended on 30
September 1997), the Department failed to spend nearly two-fifths of the
special grants monies allocated to it.
According to the Post reporting of Department-furnished records:
More problematic are Department of Justice grants:
It is in this last area that some most find fault with the change of pace in
the Metropolitan PD. Where last year there were only one in ten officers out
on the street providing on-the-spot police services, now only half of the
sworn and armed officers are out in what are known as Patrol Service Areas
or PSAs.
The Department had within the last year switched over from a system of 138
patrol-car areas to a system of 83 PSAs. There has been an increase of both
bicycle and foot patrols within the District. Citizens, however, still are
reportedly unsatisfied with the level of police presence.
Of the approximately $11 millions of grants monies left unspent from the
former fiscal year, the vast majority of it is earmarked for improved
telecommunications systems.
It must be noted here that at this time, there are three finalists in the
competition for selection as the new chief of Police in the District. Acting
Chief Sonya Proctor, a lifelong resident of the District who has worked her
way up from the lowest ranks as one of the first female officers assigned to
street patrols, having served many yers in the Internal Affairs division,
remains in the running.
Another finalist, Richard Pennington, presently Chief of the New Orleans
police, was a longtime veteran of the District's force. He is credited with
a stunning turnaround of the New Orleans department, at one time racked by
corruption including officers who ran drug rings and acted as hitmen for
their own operations. New Orleans' force is consider by some to be a model
of what can be done by bringing in an outsider to tackle the job of turning
a corruption and crime-ridden department into a national exemplar. New Orleans, once considered
one of the country's most dangerous cities (right behind Washington DC) with
(right behind Washington DC) the worst homicide case-closure rates, now has a
homicide closure rate approaching 80 percent, higher than the national
average. Washington's case closure rate remains appallingly low, having
fallen to roughly 30 percent in the last year.
The third finalist is
Charles Ramsey, currently Chicago's number-two cop.
He's famous for his extremely tight focus on community policing. A 26-year
veteran of Chicago's force, he is very highly admired and respected by his
fellow officers. He also has a high interest in research and development in
forensics and prevention and has authored a book on community policing
strategies and departmental re-invention.
Community policing has not been much of a success in Washington, where for
long years the police have been regarded with little fear by many of the
criminal element, and distrusted widely by the average citizen. There has
been a great deal of alienation and estrangement between to officers and
those whom they are charged to protect. The whole problem has been generally
decribed as a "failure to communicate" compounded by a perception that "no
good deed goes unpunished" both inside and outside the Department.
Once selection of the new Chief has been made, and they assume the reins of
control, in all cases expect further deployments of officers to the streets,
and also expect that the incoming chief will have their own approach to
spending the unspent grants on (ideally) completely discarding the old
info-comm systems and implimenting a new and forward-looking system which
can be modularly modernized as circumstances and funding permits.
The final pick is in. The Chicago police department's number two man has
been chosen, pending confirmation hearings, for the position of top cop in
the "dysfunctional" (to use his own words) District of Columbia Metropolitan
Police Department.
Charles H. Ramsey was selected last week, after certain remarks by Senator
Lauch Faircloth (a power to be reckoned with in the District Revitalization
effort) caused former MPD officer Richard Pennington to drop out of the
competition. Pennington was considered by many to be a top flight officer,
and some have suggested that it may have been frictions with Mayor Marion
Barry which caused Pennington to depart the MPD for the New Orleans force,
where he has been instrumental in cleaning up endemic corruption.
Ramsey is still due for confirmation hearings later this month, but if he is
indeed confirmed, he's stated that he believes that fixing the District's
embattled force will be a long-haul job. While standing firmly behind the
police officer on the street, he finds fault with the organizational
systems, with service delivery. Ramsey has declared that he intends to
embark upon a studied reassessment of department goals and procedures, and
to take a very studied and deliberate approach to management, eschewing mere
crisis reaction modes.
Acting Chief Sonya T. Proctor has pledged herself to assisting the incoming
chief in any way she can.
It's been a long time since we did anything with this page - we've got a lot
of catching up to do.
26 April 1998 through 23 May 1998
No Virginia, it's still not safe to let your children, nor your adults, nor
for that matter anyone, play in the District.
Washington remains the deadliest city of any real size within the United
States. According to an article in the 19 April 1998 Washington Post, the
District has a murder rate more than double that of New York City or
Philadephia, both of which cities have long had worldwide reputations as
being extremely violent. The only city that came close in per-capita murder
rate was Detroit. Washington as a city has a murder rate almost exactly six
times the national average. According to former US Attorney for the
District, Joseph E. deGenova, "[t]he police department's performance in
fighting homicide has ben so bad for so long that it invites lawlessness."
We concur, and have repeatedly said as much, for years. Washington has been
for at least a decade as close as one comes to the state of (using the word
in the ideological political sense) Pure Anarchy. One stays alive only
because one doesn't come out, or because one is exceptionally polite, or
because one picks only unarmed victims. Most people who notice this tend to
move out of the District, which has lost one-sixth of its population within
the last seven years. According to an unnamed National Institute of Justice
official, as quoted by the Post, "[i]t's like a disease cycle, where
you burn out all of the potential victims". Indeed, as statistics indicate,
while the group most at risk of death-by-violence in Washington, young black
males between the ages of 18 to 24 years, shrank by 44 percent over the
first part of this decade, the numbers of murders rose to a level not seen
in many active war zones. It may be that those who had no propensity for
violence abandoned the town rather than become victims of it, leaving behind
only the violent predators who increasingly began to battle one-another over
turf. But strangely, this is not what one might expect. One might expect
that known rivalries between gangsters who were known to one another would
explode into deadly confrontations. Instead we see that in Washington some
96 percent of killings were at the hands of strangers. From this we infer
that these are not gang rivalries as they are so commonly ascribed by the
media; rather, this is a case of predators defending their turf against
all outside intrusion which is capable of being perceived as a
threat.
We note in passing that while the Metropolitan Police Department has
attempted to take the majority of the credit for last year's decline in the
raw numbers of homicides, in fact, half of the decrease can be attributed to
increasingly proactive measures applied to the Public Housing projects which
have fallen under the receivership of David I. Gilmore. Shortly after his
being named as the receiver, he embarked upon many projects, one of which
was the establishment of a 177-member police for for the agency. Charged
solely with the preservation of law and order in the projects and contiguous
properties, they have been able to develop a community focus which was not
possible for the Metropolitan Police Department. We also note that despite
the constantly falling population of the District itself, and the declining
population of the unemployed and the continuing elimination of the Welfare
lifestyle, the murder rate remains roughly the same once one recalculates
taking these statistics into account.
While the population of young-adult black males continues to decline,
largely through flight from the city, the population of "sub-adult" killers
remains roughly the same, or rises somewhat, with a population explosion in
the 12-18 years age-segment. (We also note in passing that since roughly
1984, the majority of births in any given year has usually been to unwed
children, and thus probably a majority of this sub-adult class are from
extremely disadvantaged and quite-likely dysfunctional family environments.)
While District law forbids even law-abiding adults from even possessing a
handgun, in some parts of town, possession of highpowered handguns by teens
as young as 12 is not only commonplace, but probably more the rule than the
exception to the rule. Extremely vicious career-criminal subadults
themselves became commonplace, with only such heinous cases as the infamous
"Little Man James" case being seen as newsworthy. As these superpredators
have grown to adulthood during the last decade, they have moved from mere
adult-class handgun violence into other venues of crime which require adult
attributes such as motor-vehicle licenses and such other certifications as
automatically redound to those who have reached the age of majority - and
they enter their adult careers with perhaps as much as ten years of
experience.
Again we must return to the theme of understanding recent history in the
District of Columbia in terms of an ingoing insurgency engaged in (mostly)
low-level conflict in pursuit of acquiring control of urban terrain.
During the mid and late 1980s, as crack cocaine swept the nation, in few
places was it so rapidly deployed and so speedily and firmly entrenched as
in Washington. While the District had always had a fairly extensive criminal
subculture - to say nothing of the immense drug undergrounds whose
subcultural domains extended far into the suburbs - at no previous time was
the Mayor of any large city evidently operating in open support of a
heavily-armed and extremely violent subcultural irruption. While Mayor
Marion Barry was eventually arrested in 1990 in a videotaped "sting"
operation by the FBI, with almost certain assistance from factions within
the Metropolitan Police Department, the damage had been done. At the time of
his arrest, the Mayor was partaking with a Federal informant and former
sometimes lover, while his bodyguards were ordered to wait downstairs in the
lobby of the Vista Hotel. In this breathtaking vista of the Mayor's private
life, televised for all to see in all his tumescence and pecadillo, we saw
evidence that the Mayor's use was no occasional matter, but that instead he
was quite practiced in the art. Before his arrest, he was the subject of a
local joke, which went: Q - have you been smoking crack with Mayor Barry? A
- why not, everyone else does! Sad but true. As former FBI agent and
DC police-issues authority Carl Rowan Jr says, "[t]he Mayor was palling
around with suspected drug dealers, and all of the upper-echelon police
appointees were political ... You tell me what message that sent to the
cops?"
It probably didn't matter what message was sent to the cops, or at least not
to a lot of them. As the wave of violence and murder grew to epic
proportions, Congress passed legislation which required the
practically-overnight hirings of nearly 1000 new police officers.
Background-checking was spotty at best. More than 100 of the officers hired
in this feeding-frenzy of personnel acquisition later went on to be arrested
for everything from mere corruption through criminal association, through
being narcotics "mules" to murder (and some allege that there was, and may
still be, a political assassination wing within the MPD).
During the Cold War, it was a truism that the Communist Party absolutely
desired to place loyalists in positions where they could control the
selection of new hires, or effect the firings of individuals not amenable to
the cause of the Party. We at Earth Operations Central remain convinced that
if such a strategy was not consciously followed by the Barry-Cronies (tm)
administration, the effect was precisely the same. In any case, rather than
a Nation's Capital ruled by law, we saw an anarchy increasingly
characterized by sloth, corruption, malfeasance, and above all, a Cult of
Personality whereby the only hand at the helm was not that of law, nor
certainly of Justice, but of Mayor-For-Life Marion Barry and his political
appointees. Those decent officers in the force on whom we all depend were
increasingly at the mercy of political appointees, many of whom have since
been indicted for assorted criminal activities or abuse of their positions.
In short, it is as if Mayor Barry could not have taken a more studied
approach to filling the streets of Washington DC with well-armed young men
while simultaneously hamstringing the entirety of the law-enforcement
community in Washington. Essentially, Mayor Barry empowered no class of
citizens, nor any class of guardians, but instead planted himself firmly on
the side of an incoming cultural irruption at deadly crosspurposes to the
citizenry, in effect opening wide the floodgates to an enemy invasion while
reducing the army to unsupplied buffoons oficially mis-led by sympathizers
to the invasion. We believe that only if one takes this outlook can one
possibly impact the District's murder rate. God help us all had a
real enemy embarked upon a mission of infiltrative insurgency, and
low-intensity conflict in pursuit of acquiring the urban terrain of
Washington; all they would have needed to do was to act as if they were
law-abiding as regarded drugs and they would have been welcomed as
liberators (no matter their hidden agendas) by the victims of what we shall
hereinafter refer to as the Barryculture. We must stress here that being
opposed to drugs does not mean that someone's good, let's just say that the
Soviet Union never had any troubles with drugs and they weren't
exactly dedicated to freedom and justice. On a note of closing we remark
that it may be necessary to strategize against widespread crime and cultural
irruption within the District in terms less paramilitary, and more in terms
of the purely military.
Thus we see that the new chief of the District of Columbia Metropolitan
Police Department has his work cut out for him. Not only must he deal with
such factors as the entrenched Barryculture both within the MPD and outside
in the killing-streets of Washington, but he must also deal with other
factors as well, such as a completely deteriorated physical-plant at almost
all of the police facilities. Also, despite immense allocations of funds
directly from the Federal government to the MPD, required technology is
unavailable. Information technology deployment within the MDP is appallingly
low, with even such primitive-but-essential equipment such as FAX machines,
cellular phones, and even long-distance telephone access largely
unavailable. Many have expressed a great deal of concern and confusion as to
why so little of the funds allocated to the police department has been
spent. We have presumed so far that this was due to a reluctance to commit
to expenditures until a permanent Chief of Police was selected and sworn-in.
Unanimously approved by the DC Council, on 21 April 1998, Charles H. Ramsey
was sworn-in as Chief of Police. A career policeman from Chicago, with 28
years of service and a reputation of being worthy of the highest degree of
loyalty by Chicago's Finest, Ramsey vowed to bring to Washington a police
department "rooted in and guided by ... honesty, integrity, respect for one
another and for the community, fairness, dedication, committment and
accountability for individual actions and organizational results." Ramsey
had early remarked that he believed that the major fault with the MPD was
less one of the qualifications of the officers, or even the facilities or
equipment (though we expect that this part of the assessment will rapidly
change) than with the way that services are delivered. We note in passing
that despite last-years' remarks by then-Chief Larry Soulsby (since resigned
in the wake of disclosures that his roommate, then-Lt. Jeffrey Stowe, had
misappropriated MPD funds and had been engaging in extortion) which had
given the impression that many more District officers would be deployed from
offices and onto the streets, this has in reality never happened. We hope
that Chief Ramsey will make good on this promise of Soulsby's and will
escalate the process of launching former desk-jockeys onto the streets. We
also hope that he will make sure that the District's officers are qualiied
to use their weapons. Recently, it was discovered that something like half
of the District's officers had not passed their weapons qualifications.
Ramsey is particularly known for his formative expertise in the concept of
"community policing" which practice has already resulted in a much higher
perception of public safety in the Public Housing projects, where it has
been implimented by that agency's in-house police force.
Mayor Marion Barry, who aided in the selection of Ramsey for the position of
Chief of Police, evidently didn't read the fine print on Ramsey's contract.
Barry had expected that, although Barry has been stripped of any direct
control over the MPD by the DCFRA Control Board and Congressional action,
the new Chief would be reporting primarily to Barry. However, as the
contract states, the prime point of contact to higher authority is to be
with Control Board Vice Chairman, Stephen D. Harlan. The District "corporate
counsel", one John M. Ferren, has pronounced the contract "illegal" as the
Mayor cannot delegate his authority to the Control Board. However, DC
Council Member Jack Evans, a member of the Memorandum of Understanding (or
MOU) Group, says, the Mayor is playing a dangerous game by inviting a
congressional takeover. Congress, which has the sole ultimate authority over
the District of Columbia under US Constitution Article I Section 8 Clause
17-18, can very easily write legislation which would place the police
department under direct Federal control. In light of the Mayor's role in the
irruption of the Barryculture of crime and violence during the 80s and early
90s, and also in view of the fact that Barry was explicitly stripped of power
over the police department in an effort to reverse the effects of decades of
political-appointments of incompetents, cronies and criminals to positions
of power by Barry, we very much hope that Barry will be cut out of the loop
on all police matters of greater importance than reviews of the month's
Parking Enforcement totals. Jack Evans said: "I can tell you the police
chief will not report to the mayor." We're sure that this view is shared by
Senator Lauch Faircloth, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the
powerful Senate Appropriations Committee for the District of Columbia.
Senator Faircloth, among others, has recently been pressing for turning the
District Police over to the Federal government. We ourselves beg to differ,
if not with the approach then with the degree; see our remarks above which
state that we are of the opinion that there may well be a future need for
direct military action in and around the District of Columbia in order to
dislodge the irruptive culture's toehold in the region. In any case, simply
turning operational authority of the MPD over to Federal management might
well be insufficient without concomitant massive personnel turnover.
It would, however, be an excellent second step, with Ramsey's confirmation,
as an outsider not linked to nor compromised by ties to local corruption, as
a first step. Overhasty action against irruptive subculture might result in
terroristic backlash, for which eventuality the US and in particular the
Greater Washington Metropolitan Area is grossly underprepared, according to
an interagency study as reported by the Post.
For what it's worth, in most of the Washington DC police districts, the
closure rate on murder approaches 50 percent for the first time in years.
National averages are generally in excess of 60 percent. For the District of
Columbia, this is something of a stunning turnaround, with the exceptions of
districts 6 and 7, which have murder case closure rates of, respectively, 8
percent and 25 percent. Note that these figures include only murders
committed within the District of Columbia in 1998. Among other factors
credited for the turnaround is a restructuring of the homicide division by
Homocide commander Ross E. Swope.
Some time ago, in an an efort to get more community involvement from the
police, then-chief Larry Soulsby distributed the homicide division to the
various districts. Later, then-Acting-Chief Sonya T. Proctor re-consolidated
the deployed officers and detectives to a central location. Now, a
re-division has been established, along practical investigative divisions
rather than district geographic divisions. These functional divisions are
now concentrating on the types of murder - for example, there is a division
specializing in murders which are probable serial-killings, gang-related
killings, deaths by arson, etcetera. Reportedly the entire force will work
on any killing to whatever degree required, however speialty groups with
additional training are available for consultation as needed. Terrifyingly
(but better late than never) one task group is looking closely at the deaths
of over 100 women in the past several years, at last admitting that there
may not only be a serial killer in Washington, but possibly several. As more
money, provided under emergency authorizations and the District
Revitalization Act, has begun to actually reach the police districts, more
specialized training is being provided to officers, as useful equipment, in
particular useful information and telecommunications systems.
However, both national and local policework authorities say that one of the
systems which has long been available to local investigators, the Integrated
Ballistics Identification System (IBIS), is grossly underused. There is at
present a backlog of some 2500 rounds and expended casings which have yet to
be tested and catalogued or crossmatched. Combined with the ongoing (we
presume; there have been no public reports of an improved situation)
decrepitude and uselessness of the evidence storage facilities, this leads
to a very bleak outlook in the DC criminal-justice system. No matter the
improvements in the closure rate (in the District, "closure" is determined
either administratively by noting that the offender is in jail on another
offense, or worse, closure may be alleged with a simple arrest of the
subject) - justice is not served if an arrested perpetrator can walk simply
because evidence linkages cannot be made due to failure to pursue
court-proofed procedure.
On 10 June 1998, it was announced that Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey,
formerly of Chicago, who was chosen to head the embattled Washington
Metropolitan Police Department after an extended nationwide "talent search",
has named Nola Joyce, formerly a Chicago deputy police superintendant,
Illinois Department of Corrections administrator and University of Illinois
(Urbana-Champlain) adjunct professor, to the position of head of the MPD's
planning unit.
Ramsey, in an unrelated issue, has come under intense pressure by
Washington's extremely-activist Latino Civil Rights Center to continue the
established Departmental policy which prohibits officers from requesting
immigration documentation from non-English-speaking Latinos who have come
under scrutiny. Washington is home to an increasing number of Latinos, many
of whom had arrived in the US under refugee status. In recent months, as
Federal law greatly restructuring immigration policies and procedures came
into effect, Latino civil-rights groups have led major demonstrations
protesting imminent deportations. Special status may be granted certain of
these refugee communities, but in the absence of the ability to request
documentation, police officers cannot tell whether they are dealing with
legal refugees, resident aliens, naturalized foreign-born American citizens,
or illegal aliens. In a city so international as is out Nation's Capital, we
believe this policy to be bordering on sheer stupidity if not insanity,
police officers must be able to check national identity of suspects.
We must note that prior to the Federal crackdown on border-jumpers, there
have been some extremely scary incidents in Washington, including
penetration to the President's helicopter's service area and runways by
illegal aliens on construction crews, and seizures of top-quality forged
documentation in open-air markets in Adams-Morgan and Mt.-Pleasant.
25 June 1998
In support of this move, widely hailed by law-enforcement scholars, Ramsey
noted (as reported by the Washington Post): "The
skill sets required to be a policeman of the '90s and into the next century
is totally different. We need to reflect that."
Possibly the majority of officers in the MPD do not possess any college
degrees. Before this time, a high-school diploma was the only educational
requirement of applicants. Former Chief of Police Larry Soulsby, for
instance, reportedly had no college degree.
We must note that in a city where white-collar crime is certainly no less
pervasive than is the other variety, and where possibly the majority of
legal violations are committed by persons with college degrees, it is of
course only sensible that officers themselves be possessed of academic
distinction and, more importantly, have been exposed in full immersion to
the culture of the collegiate, or they will simply tend to be outclassed in
anything other than a street arrest or a bar fight. This is not intended as
a slight upon the intelligence of MPD officers, it's just that I'll be the
first to say that no matter how smart you are, you need to go to college
just to learn dirty tricks, or those who know them will leave you
clueless.
Ramsey did not directly state, but it may be inferred from other statements,
and the known condition of the management structures of the MPD, that he
seeks to improve the organizational systems of the MPD. Once the envy of
police forces worldwide, the Metropolitan Police Department is simply not
professionally managed; there would be a clear benefit if persons with
degrees in organizational management, in particular police management, were
put in charge of the show. In particular, accountability specialists will be
essential if the Force is to shed the reputation of questionable
procurements, and the known status of flagrant ineptitude in evidence
management.
As part of what is shaping up to be an ongoing program to attract top-flight
professional police managers, recently Ramsey appointed a new number-two man
in MPD management, Executive Assistant Terrence W. Gainer. Mr. Gainer was a
former director of the Illinois State Police, a no-nonsense organization if
ever there was one, from March 1991 until his arrival in the District. He
has also served as special assistant for drug enforcement to the US
Secretary of Transportation. Gainer, interestingly, appears to also be an
expert on Rohypnol and other such
coercive-chemicals. Gainer also figured prominently in the so-called "Roby Ridge incident",
and is on record as supporting graduated classes of teen drivers'-licenses.
[source:InterNet]
In the interim, as regards educational levels of the present police management,
Chief Ramsey appears to be doing a bit of assessment. He has reportedly
requested of lieutenants and captains the creation of a 500-word essay,
describing perceptions of present problems and future challenges for the
department. He's also requested resumes. He's quoted by the Post as
saying: "All I want is the best and brightest... if a person fits that bill,
he has a position with me; if they don't then they're out. It's just that
simple."
In recent days, Ramsey has stated that he cannot support off-duty work by
officers, particularly in positions as bouncers at bars. Clearly, having a
sworn officer employed in a position where he must passively observe
non-violent criminal activity creates an aura of moral-turpitude or at least
the potential of appearances of corruption. Yet District officers are often
driven to such employment by the relatively low pay offered by the District.
Chief Ramsey has proposed a 13-percent pay raise for all District officers.
He will probably, should he get his request for a requirement of college
degree, be forced to substantially raise pay again to attract qualified
recuits.
Chief Ramsey has also begun implimenting assorted other programs, some
quietly, some with great visibility if not actual fanfare. One program which
was touted as an all-around success in Ramsey's native Chicago was the
so-called "Roll Calls Without Walls". Ramsey is a very strong proponent, in
fact a driving creative force, of the Community Policing approach.
Henceforth, it will be not-uncommon to see various police units assemble in
public to conduct start-of-shift business. It may be added that considering
the conditions of some police buildings, you might as well have the officers
assemble out of doors, the conditions are almost certainly more pleaseant
and probably more safe as well. Chief Ramsey has promised to agitate for
better working conditions, at least he wants the buildings rehabilitated.
Also, recently, members of various units have been going house to house,
knocking on doors and introducing themselves. There has long been a sense of
distance between the MPD and the community; this is one of Ramsey's
antidotes to distance, an attempt to develop rapport between the officers
and the neighborhoods they are expected to serve.
In other police matters, a report has been released which notes that roughly
one in eight calls to DC 911 emergency control went unanswered, and one in
five was answered within 16 to 80 seconds. Poor pay, abuse of leave, and
understaffing have been cited as specific problems within the 911 emergency
response center.
27 June 1998
Captain Acosta takes command of the 3rd Division, which includes parts of
the city which have extremely heavy concentrations of Latinos, largely
foreign-born refugees of the last decades' wars in Central and South
America, many of whom are of questionable immigratin status. Latino leaders
in the area have been pressing for years to have more high-level leadership
in the police department, which they categorize as insensitive,
cultural-supremacist, anti-illegal-alien, and Spanish-nonspeaking
anti-Latino racist. We assume that Captain Acosta will address these
issues.
13 September 1998
Chief Ramsey observed, shortly after being sworn into office, that the
greatest weakness of the MPD was not its officers, most of whom are
upstanding examples of dedicated public servants placing themselves on the
front lines, but rather the organizational structures which enable their
ongoing war against crime. However, others maintain that mere organizational
restructuring will remain an ineffective approach, citing the long years
during which Marion Barry and his political appointees picked and chose
which officers rose to which positions, largely on the basis of whether or
not their police work "stepped on the toes" of Barry or his cronies, or
their various suspected illegal operations - accountability was based not on
the results obtained, but rather was dependent on who was not pissed-off.
Investigations into police-department corruption remain underway. Still, one
of the best ways to break up conspiracies is to relocate suspected
conspirators to differing remote provinces, and this may be one motivation
for the particular mode of restructuring selected by Chief Ramsey.
First and foremost, the sitting-duck and falling-apart downtown central
headquarters is to be split up. The downtown HQ of the MPD is an ancient and
rotting wreck of a place, which over the summer experienced massive power
outages due to electrical fires. Among other things, left the 911
emergency-number control center and central dispatch facilities unmanned for
a few days. Promises were made that this would be remedied, with an eventual
new facility which would feature state-of-the-art equipment, staffed by a
larger crew of operators and dispatchers, receiving pay on a par with that
received by similar personnel in surrounding jurisdictions.
Rather than have one central location serving the entire city, Ramsey intends
to create three Regional Operations Command center (ROC). Each would be
headed by an assistant chief, based locally. "Gallium es in partum tres",
with a northern command center controlling Districts 2 and 4, central
command will cover Districts 1, 3 and 5, and an eastern command will cover
Districts 6 and 7.
At present, there appears to be no decision as to where the new Operations
Centers will be located. The present state of the various District Offices'
physical facilities are considered "deplorable". They are overcrowded and
underequipped. We might suggest that commercial space be leased temporarily
until such time as funds can be allocated to either replace existing
facilities, or acquire permanent replacements. Given that Washington may be
viewed as increasingly a target for international terrorism and operations
aiding and abetting such ventures, heightened security of any new facilities
should be a major consideration. Distributed dataprocessing and distributed
communications links are to be presumed, presently there is inadequate
computer power available to the District Offices and citywide, the MPD's
telephony needs, both data and voice, far exceed capabilities.
Among other organizational changes, many of the present "special teams"
are to be eliminated as such, and member components will be redistributed to
the several Districts. Among such "special teams" to be distributed are:
Homicide, Sex Offenses, and Traffic. Of these teams, possibly only Homicide
should have ever been centralized, due to the trans-district nature of
deadly crime here in Washington. However, past performance has indicated
that centralization of the Homicide Division here in Washington has proved
to be counterproductive.
As the various special-teams divisions are salted throughout the city, each
Regional Operations Center will acquire its own special teams units,
presumably operating independently of their counterparts in other regions.
Such regional special-teams units include youth investigations and canine
units, according to the Post report on the reorganization.
The re-distributed special-teams detectives, some 300 of them, will be
divided into two major task groups. One will investigate crimes against
property, and the other will investigate crimes against persons.
Also to be re-invented will be the controversial Patrol Service Areas or
PSAs. Each will become a mini-district, with one lieutenant and several
sargeants, many of whom will be expected to be out on patrol. Where at
present there appears to be a great degree of independence and lack of
organization - and thus a clear lack of accountability - within each of the
83 PSAs, there will henceforth be a chain of command and accountability, and
perhaps most importantly, managerial authority. Each PSA will also be
assigned its own crime-scene technicians, who have previously been
criticized for their slow response time to the field due to their
centralized location.
Ramsey is also said to be considering greatly increasing civilian employment
within the MPD, to allow more sworn officers to be out in the field and on
patrol. Reportedly he has already hired civilian management for such areas
within the department as communications, strategic planning, and personnel.
It may develop that central operations will be administered by civilian
authority as well. However, we believe that as a paramilitary organization,
the central core of the police department should probably continue to be run
by paramilitary authority which would be more cognizant of the special needs
for security.
Ramsey also proposes that an increased proportion of the MPD budget should
be dedicated to training, and in particular to leadership and management
training. Also, in keeping with his plan to pursue Community Policing
strategies, he intends to forge ahead with increasing cooperation between
residents and groups of officers assigned to liason with the communities.
Please see the Washington Metropolitan Police
Department Homepage.
More commentary is to come!
And as always, thanks to the fine and diligent staff of the Washington Post.
Acting Police-Chief Proctor Reorganizes Top Brass
We now begin a new year, and I have begun a new page. This page will deal
with 1998 coverage of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department.
It must be noted that as regards community outreach and zero-tolerance
policies for minor crime, this approach has been credited as a major force
in the recent extreme reduction of crime in New York City. Consistent
enforcement of minor infractions has tended to get persons who would commit
major offenses off of the street.
Decentralization Resulted in Compartmentalization
DNA Testing Matched
Mayor Barry to Select Candidate "Soon"
Acting Chief Proctor Fires Three District
Commanders
On Friday 13 February 1998, Acting Chief of Police Sonya T. Proctor dismissed three
top veterans of the Metropolitan Police Department.
Police Reform Still Not Up To Speed
On 2
February 1998 we noted that the Metropolitan Police Department had made
an arrest in the mysterious series of murders in the Petworth
neighborhood.
Chicago's Finest Tapped for Rebuilding Role
New Chief of Police Selected, Sworn-In
On 16 June 1998, MPD Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey stated that he would
seek a requirement that prospective police recuits possess college
degrees.
Captain Jose Acosta, the first Latino to head a Washington DC police
station, was named to the post 26 June 1998 by MPD Chief Ramsey. He rises to
the post after the abrupt ousting of the former occupant of the position,
one Joseph Adamany, a 26-year veteran of the force, who had been appointed
by then-Acting-Chief Sonya T. Proctor. Adamany had been given the
opportunity to retire or be demoted.
Recently hired Chief Charles H. Ramsey has announced his intent to begin a
three month process of major restructuring of the Metropolitian Police
Department (MPD). This should be in place right about the time of the
elections and thus whomever is elected to the position of Mayor of
Washington will have a totally revamped system quite different from the
system which was so thoroughly corrupted and degraded under the twenty-year
reign of the Marion Barry administration.