Take prostitution, for example. Do we go back to the days when we had just one member assigned to this specialized unit - and prostitutes were running unchecked throughout Logan and Thomas Circles and other District neighborhoods?
Or traffic control, which residents continue to identify as one of their top public safety priorities. Do we eliminate the traffic posts we have established along 14th Street and at critical intersections throughout the District, or the specialized enforcement initiatives targeting drunken driving, seat belt compliance and other problems?
Or focused mission teams, which have been instrumental in helping districts respond to problems such as shootings in Columbia Heights or robberies on Capitol Hill. Do we scale back or eliminate these high-performance units in order to get more uniformed officers available for calls for service?
What about training? We have finally built up our academy to the point that we are offering quality training not only to recruits but also to experienced officers through a new, 40-hour, in-service training program that began this fall. Do we scale back or eliminate the training function that is so critical to all of our officers, especially those assigned to the PSAs?
Or the investigation of police misconduct. Again, we have increased the staffing of this critical function, including creating a first-ever Force Investigation Team to follow-up on all uses of deadly force. Do we now go back to the old days where public confidence in our internal investigations was low because staffing and training were so inadequate?
We are probably already understaffed in some of our specialized operational areas, such as narcotics, auto theft and youth services. Do we scale these back even further?
My point is that this legislation does not come without consequences. Adding personnel in one operational area will require reductions in other operational areas. There simply are not hundreds of police officers "sitting behind desks" in purely administrative jobs who could be instantly assigned to street patrol duty to reach the percentage this legislation proposes. Achieving that percentage will require cutbacks in other operational units - or in operational support units such as training or internal affairs - that are critical to supporting our PSA officers in carrying out community policing.
In closing this afternoon, let me state once again that I share your goals of putting more police officers on the streets of Washington, DC, improving our response to emergency calls for service, and advancing community policing. And I have worked very hard to achieve those goals over the past 19 months - by increasing sworn staffing in the PSAs - by expanding other critical operational and operational support units - by civilianizing numerous administrative functions - and, most recently, by reinventing our entire shift scheduling system so that we have more officers available during the hours of the day and days of the week when their services are most needed.
I ask you to give me the flexibility and support I need to continue the job that my team and I have begun. We have made significant progress, and with the new shift schedule system, we expect to see even more progress in the future. It would be premature at this time to impose the type of mandate on the deployment of personnel that this legislation proposes.
I recognize that in the past, the MPDC may not always have been completely open about its deployment of personnel. I have tried to set a new tone of openness and honesty - with this Council and with the community - on exactly how our personnel are being assigned. And I welcome that continued oversight by you, or by any independent body you may want to bring in to review our current deployment practices. Ours is an open book.
But this legislation would dramatically rewrite that book by legislatively mandating how our personnel would be deployed. I do not believe such a mandate is in the best interests of our Department or of the communities we serve at this time.
Charles H. Ramsey
Chief of Police
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