At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson wants the District to spend $100,000 to assess the number of police officers it needs to keep the streets safe. The number of sworn officers in the city’s police department has been a hot topic since February, when police Chief Cathy Lanier told Mendelson’s public safety committee that falling below 3,800 sworn officers could mean “trouble.” D.C. currently has about 3,850 officers and is losing about 15 each month to attrition.
Officials have come forward with various plans to stop or slow the force’s dwindling size. Mayor Vincent Gray has proposed hiring 170 officers in his budget, but by the time they’re on the street the department could be down to about 3,700. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans has proposed a bill that would require the force to stay above 4,000 sworn officers.
Mendelson says he wants to dig deeper by paying an outside firm $100,000 to conduct a six-month study on how many police officers the city needs to protect the public’s safety. He included the measure in his committee’s budget, which was approved on Wednesday and could land in the final budget the council will vote on later this month.
“Let’s get a better sense of what would be a better size,” Mendelson told The Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “I don’t want it for this budget. I want to know for next year.” For this year, Mendelson said he would back the mayor’s proposal to add 170 officers.
Last week, Mendelson was among several council members who killed a bill proposed by at-large Councilman David Catania that would have created a commission of police and union officials to study the department’s recruitment and hiring issues. The commission was to focus on plans that have little fiscal impact and get its work done within 90 days.
Mendelson said at the time the proposed commission would only duplicate the work of a mayoral appointed board. On Wednesday he repeated that comment to The Examiner and added that Catania’s bill “didn’t deal with questions of how many officers there should be.”
Catania said the real difference between their proposals is $100,000.
“I welcome my colleague’s interest in the challenges of retention and recruitment at the [police department],” Catania said in a statement to The Examiner. “However, the legislation I proposed employs a strategy that is better and cheaper. I was surprised when my colleague failed to support that legislation just last week and it’s not clear to me why my proposal and his would be mutually exclusive.”
