D.C. police are trading in their badges for new ones with a different number system that is supposed to make them harder to counterfeit.
Metropolitan Police Department has ordered more than 3,900 badges with a new numbering system, giving the police chief the No. 1 badge, the second in command No. 2 badge, and on down the line, all the way to the crossing guards.
Police management received their new badges last year, and the rank-and-file police began getting theirs earlier this month, but not all of the officers are happy about the switch.
D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey, who stepped down this week, turned in his badge Thursday, said Ed Hamilton, director of the division that issues all police uniforms. Ramsey’s successor, Cmdr. Cathy Lanier, will take his badge when she assumes her new job Tuesday.
Hamilton said Ramsey ordered the new badges last year because the quality of the old ones “was suspect” and made by three different makers. The old badges broke, and the badge numbers for management were on the back of the badge and not visible to the public.
The old numbering system was haphazard, and the police chief didn’t have a badge number, Hamilton said.
The new ones will also have serial numbers on the back so they can’t be counterfeited as easily, Hamilton said.
The project to replace the badges cost the department $110,000, he said. Hamilton budgets $40,000 for new badges each year.
The department replaced 559 badges last year due to retirement, promotions, new recruits and damage, Hamilton said. Forty of them were lost, he said.
But many police officers are upset at losing badges numbers that hold sentimental value. Union head Kristopher Baumann said there are better ways to spend taxpayers’ money.
“It’s a constant waste of resources, just so the chief could get to have badge Number 1,” Baumann said. “It’s a good peek at what goes on with this administration.”
