D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced Friday that she has begun to fire for a second time 20 city police officers who were terminated, then ordered to be reinstated because the department missed critical disciplinary deadlines.
The officers had been dismissed for various reasons: Accessing personal information about a reporter and disseminating it online, taking disability leave while working at a second job, and falsifying police reports.
But they were reinstated because of administrative errors.
Reinstating the officers jeopardized the public safety and the department’s ability to fight crime, Lanier said.
“We’re talking about serious offenses,” Lanier said. “We can’t have officers testifying in court when their credibility can’t be trusted.”
To justify the department’s ability to refire the disgraced officers, Lanier and interim Attorney General Peter J. Nickles cited the District’s personnel manual that prohibits the dismissal of a disciplinary action against an employee based on technicalities such as a missed deadline.
But Kristopher Baumann, head of the D.C. police union, said the regulations cited by Nickles aren’t applicable because of the city’s collective bargaining agreement takes precedence over D.C.’s personnel manual.
“It’s troubling that the attorney general of the District of Columbia is unable to figure out what is a relatively simple issue,” Baumann said.
The issue has already gone all the way to the D.C. Court of Appeals, Baumann said. In a case involving a city officer who had been fired, the officer was reinstated after the department missed a 55-day deadline by more than 550 days.
D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson, D-at large, said he opposed the rehiring of the 20 officers, but blamed police management for failing to meet it’s own deadlines.
“Where discipline should be meted out, it shouldn’t be frustrated by slothfulness,” Mendelson said.
Lanier says the errors occurred before she took over the department in December 2006. She said she had been forced to rehire most of the officers since October because court judges and arbitrators ruled that the department did not issue a final decision within 55 days of when the officers were notified about the charges.
In nearly every case, the officers were ordered back with full back pay and benefits.
