By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Five months after the District opened a $220 million, state-of-the-art forensics laboratory hailed as an experimental transition to independent forensics testing, the crime-scene investigation unit has unraveled as a result of dysfunction and bureaucratic gridlock, according to the Fraternal Order of Police and veteran officers who process crime scenes.
Glitches in the Metropolitan Police Department's new data-management system are preventing officials from producing a key comprehensive crime report that tells authorities whether the crime rate is getting better or worse in D.C. neighborhoods and across the city.
The D.C. Court of Appeals has dismissed a long-running case brought by D.C. police officers who claimed they were disciplined for blowing the whistle on what they said was an improper department contract.
An arbitrator's ruling that D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe unlawfully retaliated against the president of the city firefighters union is "sobering" and "not good for the department," D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said Wednesday.
A veteran Metropolitan Police sergeant says higher-ups at the department and the city council chairman are protecting a manager accused of misusing department funds, failing to rescind defective speed-camera citations and improperly voiding legitimate tickets.
D.C. police officers patrolled city streets in force over the weekend as part of Chief Cathy L. Lanier's signature All Hands on Deck crime-fighting initiative, but the increased police presence appeared to do little to prevent an unusually high number of robberies.
A Metropolitan Police Department officer stabbed five years ago is being laid to rest Friday, as officials await the results of an autopsy to determine whether his death is directly related to the earlier injury and should be classified a homicide.
The District's police and fire unions are asking the city's inspector general to investigate the destruction of personnel files found burning inside trash bins and a car at the D.C. fire training academy.
The D.C. police chief's new five-year contract explicitly states that she is protected from civil and criminal lawsuits and drops a paragraph about collective bargaining at the center of a lawsuit brought by the Fraternal Order of Police.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier has signed a new five-year contract with the District that keeps her current $253,000-a-year salary in place, Mayor Vincent C. Gray confirmed Wednesday.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier's involvement in compensation decisions for the 3,500 officers of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) violates D.C. law and a 2005 mayor's order that reserved such authority for the mayor and his labor relations director, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP).
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, whose five-year employment contract expired in April, is negotiating a new pact that could further elevate her $253,000 per year salary, the fourth-highest in the nation.
Washington residents are up in arms, though not armed. With violent crime up 40 percent in the first two months of the year - including double the number of robberies at gunpoint - residents are looking for ways to protect themselves. Elected officials and police have no solution.
Walking by dirty neo-hippies in McPherson Square isn't the biggest problem with the Occupy movement. The ongoing protest is making Washington streets less safe.
Police in the D.C. area have recorded an uptick in the number of fatal police-involved shootings this year, as authorities say officers increasingly are coming under attack.
Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the District's Fraternal Order of Police, said the union was not representing Officer Bailey.
ACLU lawsuit says cop gave 10-year-old a concussion in D.C. school →
"The lack of a functioning crime lab is a serious threat to public safety," he said. "Sloppy, unprofessional practices can result in criminals going free."
