The commander who publicly contradicted D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s claim that department policy prohibited police escorts for celebrities has been relieved of his duties.
Hilton Burton was fired Monday as head of the Special Operations Division, where he oversaw the department’s SWAT, police escorts and terrorism response units. He was also demoted two ranks to captain. He’s been transferred to the medical services division and his pay has been docked $30,000, he said.
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“This thing is all retaliation,” Burton told The Washington Examiner. “Because I spoke out, this is their way of getting back at me.”
Burton said he was called into Assistant Chief Alfred Durham’s office Monday afternoon and told that Lanier no longer has confidence in his leadership ability.
Durham pulled out a captain’s badge and captain’s rank and slid the items across the desk, he said.
Lanier did not give a specific reason why she stripped Burton of his command, but in a statement released Tuesday she said the move was “based on a review of command decisions, including several critical incidents, and recommendation from Commander Hilton Burton’s supervising Assistant Chief [Lamar Greene].”
Burton has had a rocky relationship with Lanier since she took the top job in 2007. It crumbled completely after charges and counter-charges of lying at a June hearing before the D.C. Council on police escorts of celebrities.
At that hearing, Burton testified that the special operations division routinely escorts celebrities, including during the four years that Lanier headed the division. That directly contradicted Lanier’s public statements on escorts. After the hearing, Lanier told reporters that Hilton was lying.
The controversy over police escorts erupted after Charlie Sheen bragged in a Twitter message about the D.C. police escort from Washington Dulles International Airport.
“Driving like someone’s about to deliver a baby!” Sheen wrote.
A subsequent D.C. Inspector General’s report found that escorts of celebrities has been a routine and accepted practice for years, and that the escorting officers had not violated department policies.
This is not the first time Lanier has demoted Burton. In 2007, she demoted him from commander of the 4th District to inspector. Burton filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming that Lanier couldn’t reduce his rank without cause or a trial board, and Lanier reversed her decision.
In 2007, Lanier temporarily reassigned Burton when he was accused of emailing nude pictures of himself to a woman from his work computer. An internal affairs investigation was not able to confirm the charges.
Earlier this year, Burton joined a complaint with the EEOC claiming that Lanier discriminated against male officers when disciplining members of the police force.
In June, Burton filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court claiming that Lanier sought to “purge” black officers from key jobs.
