Months before a series of killings and muggings drove official D.C. into declaring a police emergency, U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf said he tried to prod city officials into cracking down on crime.
After reading about a horrific homicide in the District in January, Wolf, R-Va., called in leaders of the city, the D.C. police, U.S. Attorney Ken Wainstein, D.C. Deputy Mayor Ed Reiskin, the FBI and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C. to talk about coordinating efforts among the District’s numerous agencies and getting extra funds to help.
But in a letter addressed to President Bush earlier this week, Wolf — subcommittee chairman and member of the influential Appropriations committee, which doles out money to federal and local agencies — says he “was disappointed the meeting ended without any resolution.”
Wolf wants District officials to set up citywide crime task forces with their federal counterparts. He asked Bush to call a summit on the matter.
“Everybody from Anacostia to Georgetown should feel safe in this city,” Wolf told The Examiner on Thursday.
His public call came after D.C. police Chief Charles H. Ramsey declared a crime emergency, which in turn came after a Georgetown homicide and a rash of robberies on the Mall.
Wolf’s proposal was warmly endorsed by Council Member Kathy Patterson, D-Ward 3, an outspoken critic of the police department.
“I think it makes a lot of sense,” she said. “I think we’ve been picking up the slack for federal folks too much.”
On Thursday, Wolf refused to discuss the attendees of his January meeting.
“If I get into that, I’m blaming somebody,” he said.
The Examiner confirmed attendance separately.
Wolf said he offered his help in coordinating among the numerous agencies and opening up Congressional checkbooks to help D.C. get ahead of crime trends.
“Nothing came of it,” Wolf said.
“This city probably has more policemen than any other city in the country,” he added. “But there’s no coordination.”
Kris Baumann, chair of the police union, agrees and puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of Ramsey.
“Crime spikes every summer and they should know that,” he said. “They have no right to be surprised by it.”
Federal and District law allow police to team up with federal agencies to fight crime, Baumann said. But of the 30-plus police agencies in the District, the D.C. police only have agreements with seven of them, two of which haven’t taken effect yet.
“That’s mismanagement,” Baumann said.
D.C. police and city officials didn’t respond to requests for comment. But Norton said she remembers the January meeting differently.
Wolf discussed federal grants for the District and getting D.C. its own forensics lab. And District officials were very receptive to Wolf’s overtures, Norton said.
“Frank opened up a very important window and nobody wanted to see it closed,” Norton said. “D.C. is at the center of federal coordination.”
