Thanks to legislation passed by the D.C. Council this summer, thousands of new officers will swell the ranks of the department in the next few months to its largest level since the early 1970s.
Recruiting is already under way, and the first class of officers should be on the streets within weeks.
The infusion gives newly appointed chief Commander Cathy Lanier an unprecedented opportunity to shape the department in her image. But some observers hope that all the new blood won’t also create bad blood.
“We all remember what happened the last time,” Fraternal Order of Police President Lou Cannon said.
The “last time” was the late 1980s and early 1990s, when hundreds of recruits were rushed onto D.C.’s streets. Those classes continue to embarrass the department: By the late 1990s, D.C. led the nation in police shootings, and there were numerous allegations of waste, fraud and abuse.
Some veteran officers say privately they are worried about such a huge influx of rookies on the beat. Junior officers have the most contact with the public and have to support some of the most dangerous police work.
Even top-notch candidates can make simple but dangerous mistakes, some veterans said.
Kevin Morison, spokesman for the police department, said the department has learned its lessons from the past decades and is being careful about its hiring.
There are more investigators checking applicants’ backgrounds, educational requirements have been raised — from a high school diploma or equivalency in the early 1990s to two years of college now — the $46,395 annual salary is designed to attract more professional officers and the department has created a “lateral hiring” program to attract veterans from other departments.
“While these initiatives don’t necessarily guarantee integrity among each and every applicant,” Morison wrote in an e-mail to The Examiner, “they do raise the bar.”
As to some veterans’ complaints, Morison said their worries are overstated.
“Every veteran officer was a rookie once,” he wrote.
