By Audrey Barnes, @AudreyFox5DC
WASHINGTON -
Residents of the Seventh
District packed the Faith Tabernacle Church on Alabama Avenue in Southeast D.C.
to get the latest on misconduct cases against two 7D officers.
Police Chief Cathy Lanier told
the crowd she believes the officers' behavior is not commonplace in her
department.
"I don't know right now
that there's any cause for alarm, that there's widespread corruption and
misconduct in the Seventh District," Lanier says.
Officer Marc Washington drowned
in an apparent suicide after his arrest for taking nude photos of a 15-year-old
runaway.
Lanier says they have now
identified an adult female he may have also victimized.
And in the case of 47-year-old
Linwood Barnhill, the officer accused of pimping out a 16-year-old runaway, the
chief says two additional victims -- a 17-year-old and another adult -- have
been identified.
Lanier says, "We have not
come up with any indicators that anybody else was involved, that these two
officers were in any way involved with each other, or that that they are
connected in any way."
If anyone knows the pain the
two victims may be feeling, it's Anthony Green.
"When I was young … a
preteen actually, I was sexually assaulted on the way to school. I didn't tell
anyone,” says Green.
Green says Lanier has to
restore the community's faith in its police force.
"The message has to be
sent that this is something that cannot be allowed at all," Green says.
That is a message the chief was
happy to deliver.
"We don't have any
problem, and we would like the officers to know, if there's somebody in our
midst that is committing misconduct and we become aware of it, we will lock you
up," Lanier says.
D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells
(D-Ward 6) is holding an oversight hearing on police misconduct on January 24.
