From an outsider’s point of view, political leaders in the nation’s capital are — choose one: » Becoming a laughingstock and providing fodder for late-night comics.
» Damaging the District’s reputation on Capitol Hill beyond repair, and giving ammo to Republicans who want to unravel local control, strip D.C. of the right to regulate firearms and cut federal funding for D.C. programs.
» Both.
Add it up. Mayor Vince Gray and D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown order up tricked-out sport utility vehicles with everything but dancing babes, and they stick the city with $2,000 a month leases, give or take. Gray puts buddies and their kids on the payroll, padding it with high-paid bureaucrats in the face of a $600 million deficit. And yesterday, buffoon mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown gets escorted from a $110,000 a year job where Gray had installed him, to do what we’re not sure.
Tell me Jay Leno’s writers are not salivating over this stuff. Tell me congressmen like Utah’s Jason Chaffetz aren’t preparing legislation to increase Congress’ power over our fair city. Chances for a federal control board never looked so good.
That would be fine, in the eyes of Kristopher Baumann, chairman of D.C.’s police union, certainly when it comes to public safety.
“Why do we need to wait until there is a crisis and crime is rampant again,” Baumann asks. “What we need is a federal agency to oversee the police department. The police chief would answer to Congress.”
I am not buying what Baumann is selling, yet. There is nothing more essential to an independent government and its residents than controlling the way it is policed. Baumann has taken an extreme position that will not endear him to the political class.
But Baumann isn’t looking for love.
“Rank and file officers have been talking about this for years,” he says. “They are worried the department is about to fall apart. Police officials agree, in private.”
Baumann argues that D.C.’s leaders have reduced the police budget by $31 million in the last two years and cut 400 positions from the force. They are ready to cut another 380. Police officials have different numbers, but the facts are not in dispute: We are down hundreds of cops.
The department has stopped hiring and training new officers, Baumann says, and 1,000 cops will be eligible for retirement by 2015.
But homicides are down under Chief Cathy Lanier, and the department says crime in general is lower, too.
“If you look at real numbers crime is up,” he says. “Go to any community meeting and people will tell you streets are not safe and they are scared.”
Who’s to say federal control of the police would make the streets more safe? Baumann isn’t sure. But he is sure there would be more cops and better oversight. The last time the force dipped below 3,600 was 1988, and the feds intervened to mandate more cops.
That was no joke, and given the shenanigans in city hall, it might happen again.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
