I was a DC cop (Metropolitan Police Department [MPD]). I believe that gives me a degree of credibility to comment on the federal takeover of the MPD. “The District” – the hometown jargon for which DC is commonly referred in that part of our country – is a tale of two cities. The first tale is the story of the Starbucks-consuming elite, led by the City’s mayor, Muriel Browser. This brood is D.C.’s bourgeois or what W.E.B.
Du Bois called the 10% “an incompassionate cohort of people who manipulate and exploit the poor and working class.”
The other D.C. is a depressing story. One comprised of a never-ending trail of violent crime-ridden neighborhoods marked by the highest degree of human despair, in which many people fear leaving the confines of their homes to avoid becoming a crime victim. Yet, these are also communities filled to the brim with countless good and hard-working people. They, like me, welcome the federal government’s intervention by extra officers and the D.C. National Guard.
In darkness, consistently on midnight shifts, I have been a responding officer to countless homicides in the District. I could hear the gunshots as I sped in a beat car toward the scene, or if on a footbeat, I ran toward the gunshots. I have arrived at these scenes on the heels of a fresh kill. The victim on the ground, grotesquely contorted, calling to me in their final moments. I arrived so quickly, the blood was spilling rapidly from a visible hole in the head, among other gruesome presentations. Upon arrival, I either encountered a gunman (or gunmen) or witnessed first-hand mothers overwhelmed with grief, screaming and crying as their son or daughter, who simply went to the supermarket to buy milk, was gunned down by thugs. For me, the homicides that had the most significant impact on my psyche were the robbery victims. One was a 13-year-old girl who refused to give up her winter jacket. Just as painful were the strewn, bloodied bodies of delivery persons and Uber drivers killed by robbers. So, yes, I am 100% in support of President Trump’s takeover of the D.C. MPD. I want the “Crews” gone. (D.C.’s name for thugs and gangs).
Please don’t blame D.C. (MPD) Police Officers. The MPD is understaffed by nearly 1500 officers. The DC Police Force should have approximately 5000 sworn officers, but it does not. Blame the inept D.C. politicians (the Du Bois 10%). D.C.’s mayor is more concerned with sending her children to camp 11 hours away in Martha’s Vineyard, rather than protecting D.C. residents from carjackings. As a cop in Anacostia as well as in Northeast D.C., the calls (“runs”) from people screaming for help– and the sounds of gunfire– were so rampant that even having time to use the washroom was a challenge. I was always apologetic when my partner and I arrived an hour after your robbery.
Yes, D.C. is a wonderful city marked by vibrant African-American culture; however, concerning crime, it is no different from Chicago or Cincinnati, et al, where roving bands of thugs terrorize communities. Let’s face it, we have a violent crime problem in America but we have become so used to it that some of us fail to realize we are in the throes of an emergency.
Know that the people protesting the federal takeover of the MPD are not the black people who live in D.C.’s crime-ridden neighborhoods; rather, they are the left-wing white and black D.C. middle class (including the mayor) who are often spared the fear that most of D.C.’s black residents live with daily. The Democratic politicians in their frivolous opposition are walking a tight rope on the issue of the takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department. Their black constituents want more law enforcement officers, and for now, until the D.C. government gets its act together and hires more police officers, people who have lived in fear, rightly welcome the help of the federal government.
Do I have concerns that federal officers who have not been police officers may not be a good fit for urban policing – yes, I do. Knowing how to deliver police services in America’s cities – especially in ghettos – is a skill. A career with the FBI or DEA does not give you that skillset. The mark of a competent big city cop is being able to navigate in an 8-hour shift, the plethora of very different calls-for-service, and being able to act in a split second in response to danger since you don’t know what the seconds away dispatch will bring. A famous sociologist once described the “big city” cop as a street corner politician. Nevertheless, additional officers are needed immediately in D.C. For now, they are of the federal cloth.
