Lady calls the cops to lodge a complaint: One of her neighbors is dumping trash bags on her lawn and left a few on her porch.
Officer responds. As they are chatting by her door, the woman points out a car parked illegally across the street and says that the driver could be the dumper.
Officer approaches the car and sees a stuffed plastic bag in the back seat. He asks to check it; turns out to be clothes. The driver’s probably not the dumper, but she is parked illegally, so the officer gives her a ticket.
A few weeks later he’s called to the Office of Police Complaints to answer charges of harassment.
We’re not talking police brutality here, but the OPC opens an investigation. Really. Rather than keep the peace, the cop and the union shop steward have to show up and answer questions at OPC headquarters.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” the cop says.
The OPC doesn’t have to explain why it has summoned the cop; as part of its Kafkaesque procedures, OPC doesn’t tell cops what they’ve been accused of until they show up. And — OPC offers no due process.
Cop tells hearing officer that he actually took detailed notes about the dumper-dumpee incident, but he left them back at the office. “Can I get them and return?” he asks. Hearing examiner says no.
The case is typical of the way the Office of Police Complaints deals with cops. It summons them, questions them, and takes years to decide their cases. At a time when the District government is $500 million in the hole, allow me to suggest a quick way to slash $.2.6 million: 86 the OPC.
Born in the day when police were often accused of roughing up citizens, OPC is now redundant in an age of excessive scrutiny of cops. The OPC gets a case after the cops have investigated and after federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office have looked it over and declined prosecution.
And what do District residents get for their $2.6 million? So far this year the OPC has issued — are you ready — zero decisions. It is currently investigating cases from 2006. Last year OPC rendered six decisions, at a cost of $400,000 each.
The case for giving the ax to OPC is well-argued in a letter by the police union to city council Judiciary Committee Chairman Phil Mendelson. Backed by a stack of documents, the letter comes to a shocking conclusion: The Metropolitan Police Department is doing a fantastic job investigating its own. The union and the department often are at war over discipline. The union proposes killing OPC and adding a civilian oversight board to review the department’s actions.
“Don’t get me wrong,” says Officer Nick Deciutiis, a union shop steward. “If an officer does something wrong, he or she needs to be dealt with.”
But not by an agency that drains $2.6 million and takes years to issue decisions.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
