WASHINGTON — Police officials in the nation’s capital have been facing
recent questions about headline-making arrests — not of hardened street
criminals but of their own officers.
In a single month, one District of Columbia police officer was accused of
taking semi-nude pictures of a 15-year-old runaway and another was charged with
running a prostitution operation involving teenage girls. A third was indicted
on an attempted murder charge, accused of striking his wife in the head with a
light fixture.
Police say the
arrests aren’t representative of the entire department, which includes about
4,500 officers and civilian employees. Still, more than 100 officers in the
last five years have been arrested on charges ranging from traffic offenses to
murder to money laundering, and the latest instances have increased concerns
about training, supervision and accountability. The D.C. Council has set a
hearing to discuss the problem and Police Chief Cathy Lanier has met with
residents to assuage fears of a misbehaving department.
“We don’t think we have a department out of control, and I think that
oftentimes is the image that is portrayed,” she said in an interview, noting
that the majority of arrests are not for on-duty corruption but instead involve
off-duty misconduct that is harder to police.
The hearing Friday will focus on how applicants are screened and what
services are available to prevent alcohol abuse and domestic violence, two
prevalent problems, said Councilmember Tommy Wells, who chairs the public
safety committee.
“I think it’s extremely important that the public have confidence in our
police force and we’ve had three high-profile cases of serious police
misconduct, albeit generally off-duty,” Wells said.
Police department figures show the arrests of about 110 police officers,
for both on- and off-duty conduct, since 2009. Many of the arrests involved
traffic violations or involved cases that were dropped or ended in acquittal.
Among the most serious cases was Richmond Phillips, who received life
without parole last year for the slayings of his mistress and baby daughter.
Wendel Palmer was convicted last year of sexually abusing a girl who
participated in his church choir, while Kenneth Furr received a 14-month
sentence for an armed altercation that began after prosecutors say he solicited
sex from a transgender prostitute.
Lanier has said many of the arrested officers were brought onto the force
during a time of lax hiring standards and wouldn’t be qualified to serve today.
She said that in some cases the arbitration process has required the department
to rehire officers it fired. She said the department has dramatically tightened
its recruitment practices to mandate polygraph exams and that only one of about
25 applicants is now hired.
The department also tracks warning signs like missed commitments and abuse
of sick leave. And it requires officers to report off-duty arrests, which
Lanier contends can make the numbers look worse than in cities that lack that
requirement.
“I feel comfortable that our recruiting process, the background screening
we do, is as tight as we can get,” Lanier said at the meeting. “But I also
realize that there are people that are on the police department that came
through at a time when there was not that strict background (check), and those
are the people that we want to make sure that if they are involved in
misconduct, that we weed those people out.”
But resident Khadijah Tribble, 42, told the chief she was unconvinced the
misconduct was isolated.
“Aren’t these trends troubling and isn’t it worth our due diligence to do a
thorough, independent investigation of this trend?” Tribble said in an
interview.
Robert Kane, the director of the Drexel University criminal justice program
who has studied police misconduct, said the number of arrests wasn’t
necessarily shocking for a big-city police department.
At least 43 New York City police officers are known to have been arrested
between 2011 and 2013 on charges including gun-running, drunken driving,
perjury, a ticket-fixing scam and a cannibalism plot. A Los Angeles police
officer was charged with stomping a handcuffed woman who later lost
consciousness and died. Dozens of Memphis, Tenn., officers have been arrested
in recent years.
Kane said that on-duty police misconduct can be reliably defined, off-duty
misbehavior by officers is studied less often.
“We know what factors explain police misconduct, when police officers stop
people and extort money from them,” he said. “What do we know about officers
who walk into a liquor store when off-duty and rob it at gunpoint for some
beer?”
In D.C., the first of the recent arrests was on December 2 when officer
Marc Washington was charged with taking semi-nude pictures while on-duty of a
teenage runaway who had just returned home. Authorities say after responding to
the girl’s apartment, he directed her into her bedroom and told her to undress
so he could photograph injuries. He was arrested after the girl alerted her
mother, who contacted police. Soon after being released from jail, Washington
was dead from an apparent suicide.
The following week brought the off-duty arrest of Linwood Barnhill Jr., a
24-year-veteran who was charged after police came to his apartment and found a
16-year-old girl who had been reported missing. The girl told police Barnhill
had photographed her and offered to pay her to have sex with other men,
allegations also made by a second teenager. His lawyer says Barnhill never
threatened anyone.
Lanier acknowledged the arrests, especially for on-duty conduct, have
shaken the department. But she said she hopes the sight of handcuffed officers
sends a message to other officers who would break the law.
“We would like the officers to know that if there’s somebody in our midst
that is committing criminal conduct and we become aware of it, we will lock
them up,” Lanier said. “We don’t need somebody else to lock them up. We will
lock you up.”
