Eight years into his tenure as D.C. police chief, Charles Ramsey has become a subject of debate in the fall election.
“I know there is a Chief Ramsey issue,” said A. Scott Bolden, a candidate for an at large seat on the D.C. Council.
Bolden and other candidates say that despite a decline in crime, an increase in discipline for wayward officers and Ramsey’s background in “community policing,” D.C. voters are worried and angry about the Police Department.
The candidates say they’re getting earfuls from voters who complain about slow response, a lack of courtesy and compassion from the front-line officers, and little follow-up from investigators.
“It’s huge,” says Adrian Fenty, a council member who is running for mayor.
Ramsey couldn’t be reached for comment. But his spokesman, Kevin Morison, said the Police Department has made huge strides since Ramsey took over in 1998.
“I would just encourage everyone to rewind and remember what the [department] was like back in 1997 before the chief got here and compare that with today,” Morison wrote in an e-mail to The Examiner.
But things have also changed in the District’s neighborhoods, says Joe Martin, a community activist from the Petworth area.
“I think [the police leadership] has also been used to a neighborhood that’s fairly passive, almost subservient,” Martin said. “There’s a renewal among older folks and newer residents who are willing to roll up their sleeves and hold the department accountable.”
The prominence of the Ramsey question in this fall’s election was forecast in the police union elections earlier this year when outsider Kristopher Baumann — a critic of Ramsey — took on the incumbent chief and won in a landslide.
Now the union’s issue has become the public’s issue, Baumann said.
“When you have a police department with such critical morale issues pouring out on the street, people get worried about that — and rightfully so,” Baumann said.
Morison says his boss is getting a bad rap.
“I find it hard to find an area where [the police department] management and operations HAVE NOT IMPROVED under Ramsey’s leadership,” he wrote.
Charles Ramsey
» Appointed in 1998 after retiring from the Chicago Police Department
» Longest-serving chief of the Home Rule era
» Promised to bring community-oriented policing to the District
» Supervises 3,800 police officers
