Local
Extra police for Fenty’s bike rides costing D.C. taxpayers
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
December 10, 2008
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| Mayor Fenty and Councilmembers joined thousands of DC residents in participating in National Bike to Work Day. (Examiner File) |
Between January 2007 and June 2008, District police officers were paid for at least 178 man-hours to follow Adrian Fenty on his bike rides, departmental records show. The records are incomplete — some of the data is illegible and at least two months of data are missing — so it is likely that the total hours are much more. Time sheets obtain by The Examiner show that dozens of officers were paid for a full day for following the mayor’s two-hour rides.
The protection is in addition to the full-time officers who are paid to guard Fenty at all times and also accompany him on his bike tours.
The documents were made public after the city’s police union sued the department to secure their release. Union Chairman Kris Baumann told The Examiner the extra hours were “an embarrassment and a waste.”
“In a city where a citizen in Southeast still can’t go out at night, we’re spending all this time and money so that the mayor and his friends can go on bike rides,” Baumann said Tuesday. “Our job is to protect citizens, not to be valets to elected officials in the District.”
Neither mayoral spokeswoman Mafara Hobson nor police spokeswoman Traci Hughes responded to requests for comment.
Fenty prides himself on his physical fitness, and his bike routine is an integral part of his schedule. At least 100 times between January 2007 and June 2008, records show, one or more extra officers were paid to accompany Fenty’s bike team and security detail. The majority of the rides took at least two hours and began at 10:30 a.m. during the week.
Andrew O’Connell, who has served as a Secret Service agent and a federal prosecutor, said protective agencies are in a bind when trying to protect officials such as Fenty.
“Sometimes it may seem like overkill,” said O’Connell, who now works for a private investigation firm in the District. “But on the flip side, if something goes wrong and you don’t have the cars to get him out of there, people will say, ‘Why weren’t you prepared?’ ”
