Washington, D.C.,’s utterly dysfunctional 911 call center, laws that empower criminals, and anti-police members of the Council of the District of Columbia, such as Phil Mendelson, Charles Allen, and Brianne Nadeau, make the already very challenging job of city police officers harder than it needs to be.

To her credit, police Chief Pamela Smith (who has been in office for one year now) appears to get this. Last November, she appointed a distinguished officer and Marine combat veteran, Jeffrey Kopp, as commander of the force’s Violent Crimes Suppression Division. Kopp seems to be doing an excellent job: Violent crime remains high but is down significantly from last year.