Following the events that occurred in Ferguson,
Mo.—wherein a police officer shot and killed an unarmed teen, 18-year-old
Michael Brown—there's been much nationwide conversation about reforming police
procedures and policies. But in D.C., this has been an issue in communities
long before the tragic deaths of Brown and Trayvon Martin.
For years, statistics have revealed a great
racial disparity in arrest rates in D.C. In 2011, 91 percent of all
drug-related arrests were of black people, despite roughly equal reported usage
rates among races. And the statistics don't stop there. Recent studies
conducted by the Washington Lawyers' Committee further cement a disturbing
truth: black communities in D.C. are being disproportionately targeted by the
Metropolitan Police Department.
While the city has taken measures to help
alleviate these statistics—decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of
marijuana and, most recently, introducing a pilot program that requires some
D.C. cops to wear body cameras—many residents agree that a lot more needs to be
done. Last night, at a Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety public
oversight hearing at Howard University's School of Business, nearly 30 people
testified in front of Councilmembers Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), Anita Bonds (D-At
Large), David Grosso (I-At Large), and Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5) about the
state of police policies and procedures in the District of Columbia. Their
message was uniform: things need to change.
Specifically, last night's hearing focused on
a few MPD practices that are the source of trouble for communities in D.C.:
stop-and-frisk; jump-outs; and the egregious use of SWAT-like teams. For those
unfamiliar with these practices, a stop-and-frisk is when an officer stops a
pedestrian and frisks them on suspicion that they may be in possession of drugs
or weapons. Jump-outs refers to uniformed arrest teams that speed into an area
and make mass arrests of that area as quickly as possible. While SWAT and
SWAT-like teams are generally reserved for high-violent situations, such as a
shooter barricading himself in a house, many say that SWAT-like MPD teams are
being used egregiously, for simple tasks like serving warrants.
In a press conference before yesterday's
hearing, Wells, who chairs the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety,
praised the new body camera pilot program, calling it a "great first
step" towards reform, but agreed that more needs to be done. "There
is no question that there is a deep racism here,” Wells later said during the
hearing. And his fellow Councilmembers agreed. McDuffie, a D.C. native, said
he's been unfairly stopped and frisked by police so many times in his life that
he's lost count.
“We are told we have rights, but we know, as
black men, we don’t actually have those rights," said Jamal Muhammad, a
public witness and member of We Act Radio. "I can’t say [to police] 'what
are you pulling me over for?' There’s going to be different
consequences...because we know that might be the last question we get to ask.
That needs to change.”
While there was no doubt that a change needs
to take place, the big question lingering over the hearing was "how?
“There is no one implementation to cure the
problems, it will take time," Seema Sadanandan of the ACLU said during her
testimony. Both the ACLU and the NAACP are working with the Council to develop
legislative proposals to help reform police practices.
Among those proposals includes educating
officers on proper police procedures, eliminating unlawful stop-and-frisk,
jump-outs, and use of SWAT-like teams, and implementing ways to hold officers
accountable for their actions. “We don’t need a little change, we need a lot of
change on a lot of different fronts," said Patrice Sulton, Esq. of the
NAACP's D.C. branch. "The NAACP won’t settle for anything less.”
But for many witnesses who testified at the
hearing, the idea holding officers accountable for their actions is most
important. "We need to see some type of service punishment, for
once," said one witness, outraged that officers who accidentally shoot
unarmed suspects aren't rightly punished. "Fear is not an excuse to take
another person’s life," he added. "If you think so, you need another
job."
A second hearing is scheduled to take place
in the Wilson Building on October 27, where MPD officers will testify.
