Harry Jaffe: Police chief's shot at union boss off target
By: Harry Jaffe
Examiner Columnist
September 16, 2009
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier was none too pleased by my column last week about a defeat she took on a ruling about her "All Hands On Deck" tactic, or AHOD.
As I reported, the D.C. police union had challenged the police department's procedures in ordering all officers to flood the streets on particular weekends over the summer. Last Wednesday, an arbitrator issued a ruling that supported the union. He said Lanier and Mayor Adrian Fenty had not followed the letter of the union contract or city law in ordering cops to the streets. He said the city had to pay overtime to the cops, at a potential cost of millions.
Lanier's complaint begins with her saying that Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Kris Baumann's "assertions on the effectiveness" on AHOD are "flawed." What I find so confounding and mystifying and a bit sad is that Lanier keeps making this about her and Baumann.
Memo to the chief: This dispute is no longer between you and Baumann. It is now in the legal realm. An arbitrator -- John C. Truesdale -- whom you and the union chose has ruled against the police and the city. If you have a beef, take it to the judge.
Lanier's beef with Baumann on the AHOD issue boils down to a few points:
¥ She says the union has played both sides in demanding that the department declare a crime emergency before ordering all cops on patrol. Truesdale said the chief simply failed to call a crime emergency.
¥ Lanier says the cops didn't work overtime, as the union says. Truesdale decided they did work overtime and the city had to pay.
¥ Crime has "always" decreased during AHOD weekends, she says, compared with the same weekend the previous year. Truesdale didn't rule on this, because it was not part of the case.
But let's be rational: If most of the 3,600 cops are on patrol on a particular weekend, would you expect crime to fall? Here's a better question: What happened the next weekend, under normal patrol, and the next and the next?
Lanier writes: "To claim that AHOD does not have an impact on crime is a slap in the face of the officers who worked so hard all summer, without complaint, to bring our homicide numbers to a 45-year low."
Crime statistics were not part of the grievance. Homicides have declined, but any cop will tell you that detectives working long hours interviewing suspects solve murders, not throngs of cops roaming the streets on a few weekends.
Lanier told police Tuesday that AHOD was alive, and she would appeal Truesdale's ruling to the Court of Appeals. By law, the city has 20 days to appeal to the Public Employee Relations Board. To overturn the ruling, it has to prove Truesdale's well-reasoned ruling "was contrary to law and public policy."
Good luck.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at hjaffe@washingtonexaminer.com
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