How thin is D.C.’s thin blue line?
Don’t ask the D.C. police.
The department has failed to implement physical fitness tests for police officers — even though it was ordered to do so more than two years ago, outgoing City Council Member Kathy Patterson, D-Ward 3, said.
Patterson is outraged by the department’s unwillingness to fight the battle of the bulge, and she has written a letter to At-Large Council Member Phil Mendelson, chair of the Judiciary Committee, and outgoing Mayor Anthony Williams.
“Given all of the emphasis recently on the need for quality law enforcement in the District of Columbia,” Patterson wrote in her letters, “it is important that the laws we pass to improve performance are respected and followed by the Metropolitan Police Department.”
She’s also asked the city to open a full-scale review to see what other city laws the police department are ignoring.
The Omnibus Public Safety Agency Reform Amendment Act of 2004 required the department to adopt “full-duty performance standards” within 180 days of the act’s passage.
Patterson told The Examiner that the failure is “egregious.”
She also said she doesn’t accept Assistant Chief Shannon Cockett’s explanation that the department isn’t able to test its officers until it can write up a job description for the testers.
“I was stunned yesterday to learn that a simple, straightfoward requirement like a fitness test has not been implemented two years later,” Patterson said.
Police spokesman Officer Ken Bryson declined comment.
