The thin blue line snapped earlier this week when an anonymous D.C. police officer took a sarcastic shot at prosecutors on the police department’s Web site.
As a matter of course, the D.C. police post the “Officers of the Month” awards on the department’s Web site. On Wednesday, a citation hailing 1st District officers for a drug arrest carried the following remarks: “Due to the circumstances beyond the control of Officers Leslie and Suter, the case was presented before a grand jury by a Secret Service Agent considered to be an expert by the U.S. Attorney’s Office who was handling rapid indictment cases for the day. Needless to say, the grand jurors did not indict the subject.”
Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile said the author was only venting frustration at the jury. “I see nothing in there derogatory about the U.S. attorney’s office,” he said.
But others — including one of Gentile’s staff members — say the remark reveals ongoing tensions about the way prosecutors handle grand juries.
“To avoid having this many officers coming back to court, a system was designed to have just one person presenting the evidence,” said Officer Israel James. “The problem so many officers have is, does [that person] really know the case?
“I went through this myself,” he added. “I always felt better presenting my own case, because I was there when it happened. But the system doesn’t allow that.”
U.S. attorney’s spokesman Channing Philips did no comment, citing rules sealing grand jury proceedings.
The one-testifier policy was adopted after years of complaints — mainly from the department — that officers were wasting thousands of hours in court waiting to testify in simple cases. In response, the U.S. attorney’s office hired its own investigators to present evidence to grand juries. Police officers come in and brief the investigators on cases. The investigators then testify, allowing the police officers to get back to work.
Within minutes of The Examiner calling D.C. police to ask about the remark on the citation, the citation was rewritten and reposted online.
It now reads: “Due to the circumstances beyond the control of Officers Leslie and Suter, the subject was not immediately indicted.”
