When word got out that David Catania wanted to declare an “emergency” and take a shot at fixing our cop shortage, I thought: “Hey, great news, another law-and-order council member.” My enthusiasm was short-lived.
Catania, an at-large member, is one of the council’s brightest, most energetic and argumentative members. Long a zealot for improving the health of locals and saving the United Medical Center, this week he’s turning his attention to the looming loss of police officers.
In the 1970s we had upwards of 5,200. The council recently set a target number at 4,200. We are at 3,875 and falling. Police Chief Cathy Lanier sees “trouble” if the number falls below 3,800. Mayor Vince Gray’s new budget would effectively cut more cops.
What to do?
Catania has introduced two measures: one would establish an advisory commission to study police recruitment and retention; another would declare “an emergency” exists, requiring the commission.
Let me get this straight: the fact that we are about to have the fewest cops on the street in years as we enter the annual killing season is not an emergency. But the council has to declare an emergency to set up a commission to study the drop in cops.
“Good ideas come from sitting down and producing a report,” Catania tells me. Half of the six-member group will come from the executive, half from the police union. The panel would disband within three months. “Then the judiciary committee could hold a hearing.”
There are so many things wrong with this process I hardly know where to begin. Six members? Who breaks a tie? Two co-chairs, one from each side? These people cannot agree, a prescription for confusion. And finally, what happens to the alleged report? If it goes to Phil Mendelson’s judiciary committee, I predict death by lack of attention.
Catania tells me he’s “not trying to knock anyone on the judiciary committee.” But I am. If Phil Mendelson would focus on the committee’s principal task ?– ensuring the public safety — Catania would not have had to propose his “emergency” commission. Mendelson could have called a hearing to examine the matter and proposed legislation to correct it.
But no.
Jack Evans, Ward 2 council member and a true law-and-order guy, has proposed legislation to set the force at 4,000. Mendelson has not moved it.
Police union chief Kristopher Baumann cooked up the commission with Catania in hopes it would trigger deep reform of the police department, so that good cops would stop leaving the force, as they have been doing at the rate of 150 or so a year.
The D.C. police department has been studied enough. The shortest distance between citizens and safe streets is to pass Evans’ bill, restart the recruitment process and create a department that engenders loyalty, decent working conditions, secure benefits and less punitive disciplinary policies.
Mendelson can accomplish this without an emergency commission. Let’s hope it doesn’t take a bloodbath to force him into taking action.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
