Whither Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has been all the rage among the capital city’s chattering classes. Will the firebrand reformer get along with the mild-mannered new mayor, Vince Gray? Will she stay through the school term? Complete the full year? All good questions.
For those of us who live and work and walk beyond the public schools, the more pressing matter might be: Who will be running the police department under the Gray regime? Chief Cathy Lanier has been at the helm for the past four years under Adrian Fenty.
Should she stay or should she go? My guess is Lanier leaves her office months before Michelle Rhee takes off.
By many statistical measures, Lanier has done well. Crime is way down. Homicides continue to dip to lows we haven’t seen since the 1960s. Closure rates are up. Lanier has forced cops to use high-tech equipment and tried to reduce paperwork. All good.
But Lanier lost the hearts and minds of the street cops along the way. Her boss, Adrian Fenty, never bonded with the police officers. He lost their trust early on when he seemed to side against the two cops who were involved in the shooting of DeOnte Rawlings. Lanier was seen as backing Fenty and abandoning her troops.
Lanier is at war with the police union, in particular Fraternal Order of Police boss Kristopher Baumann. Their beef became personal. Lanier sent her goons to investigate him on bogus charges, and cops believe she tried to defeat him in the last union election.
But the union has real reasons to dislike Lanier and Fenty. The police have not had a raise in years. The union and the city have been deadlocked in contract negotiations. The city blames the cops for stopping collective bargaining; the union says the city has been negotiating in bad faith. Net result: angry cops, low morale, defections to other departments and the feds.
The union took Lanier to court over the way the department ordered cops to show up for the All Hands On Deck shows of police force. Cops thought it was all for show, and the department didn’t pay overtime. Arbitrators sided with the union, and the city might have to fork over $40 million in overtime pay.
Fenty tried to balance the budget on the backs of the cops by cutting retirement benefits. The cops didn’t see Lanier standing up for them.
The union backed Fenty four years ago and supported him in crime legislation before the city council. This time the union supported Gray and helped him write his public safety position papers. Baumann can get Gray on speed dial.
And who should turn up on candidate Gray’s security team? None other than Brian Jordan, a former assistant chief who Lanier demoted twice.
None of this bodes well for the chief.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
