The District Council member who oversees the police has asked the department to explain why it canceled a vital accreditation test after spending thousands of public dollars and nearly a decade preparing for the inspection.
Phil Mendelson, D-at large, dispatched a letter to police Chief Cathy L. Lanier Wednesday, asking her to explain why she peremptorily scuttled a long-scheduled visit by agents from the Commission on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies in April. CALEA accreditation had been a long-standing goal of the D.C. Police Department, but D.C. police officers botched the paperwork for the examination and Lanier decided it “would be a waste of time for them to continue,” according to a copy of the commission’s report, which was obtained by The Examiner.
