The D.C. Council will consider legislation that its backers say will make it exceedingly difficult for police officers to evade service of lawsuits and subpoenas tied to their job performance.
The bill, introduced this week by Council Member Phil Mendelson, establishes the Metropolitan Police Department’s general counsel as a one-stop drop-off point, either in person or by mail, for summons issued to sworn police officers. The measure “cuts through the confusion and recalcitrance,” Mendelson said, of an existing policy that allows officers to avoid being served for actions arising from their performance.
The ACLU and the D.C. Public Defender Service have peppered Mendelson with complaints of evasion, said the council member, chairman of the public safety and judiciary committee.
This occurs, he said, despite a D.C. law requiring MPD to establish a process for notifying officers they will be served, for notifying process servers of a specific time and place and for designating an MPD office where service can be accepted on behalf of the officer.
Rules created by the MPD and released in September allow, but do not require, an officer to name a designee to receive service on his or her behalf.
The rules permit the MPD to “disobey the law,” said Stephen Block, legislative counsel with the ACLU National Capital Area.
“We and other attorneys have been engaged for many years in game of cat and mouse trying to identify officers at their place of work and getting them served,” Block said. “The process server goes to a district office, asks for an officer and then one way or another the officer is tipped off and goes out the back door.”
Officers are not evading service, said Kristopher Baumann, president of the Fraternal Order of Police. When there’s confusion, he said, it’s often because the process server shows up during the wrong shift.
“Make a phone call and ask them to provide an officer, and the officer’s there,” Baumann said. “This is a solution looking for a problem.”
