Fraternal Order of Police
Metropolitan Police Labor Committee
1524 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003
(202) 548-8300 Fax (202) 548-8306
Testimony Of
Sergeant Gerald G. Neill, Jr. Chairman,
Fraternal Order of Police/ Metropolitan Police Labor Committee
Before
The Judiciary Committee of the City Council
Of
The District of Columbia
At
The Public Oversight Roundtable on Metropolitan Police Department
Performance in Homicide Investigations
January 21, 2003
Chairman Patterson, other Members of the City Council,
thank you for this opportunity to testify regarding the performance of the
Metropolitan Police Department. I speak on behalf of more than 3,200 sworn
police officers, detectives and sergeants who serve this community as
members of the Metropolitan Police Department. I have been a D.C. police
officer for twenty-four years and take real pride in serving among the men
and women I represent.
It is a sad fact of life in communities that the
chances of dieing as a result of a homicide are increasing while the
chances that your killer will be apprehended, prosecuted and brought to
justice are declining. Chief Ramsey promised to make improving the
Homicide Closure rate an example of his ability to lead our Department and
make our city safer. I believe he should be held to that promise and
judged by the results of his leadership in this most important area of law
enforcement.
I would urge you and our community to review not the
snap shop of the homicide closure rates on a particular day or even
quarter, tut rather to review the trend and the continuum of confusion
which have become the hallmarks of Chief Ramsey's administration. The
record is clear. Chief Ramsey made sweeping and immediate changes in the
structure and composition of the Homicide Unit without adequate
consideration of the differences between Chicago and the District of
Columbia. He didn't familiarize himself with the history of the unit
before he ordered it disbanded in favor of a model, which failed to
improve our closure rate. In fact, it reduced the
closure rate. Only after repeated exposure of examples
of the failure of the decentralized approach he instituted, did he finally
agree to recentralize the unit.
Unfortunately, in recentralizing the Homicide Unit he refused to listen to
input from the FOP, or detectives with years of experience. I said, upon
learning of the structure, resources and operating protocols which Chief
Ramsey placed over the newly reconstituted Homicide Unit, that he was
programming it for failure.
I wrote to Chief Ramsey regarding some of our concerns
in October of last year. I am sorry to report that he failed to take any
significant action relating to some of my observations. They include;
1. The present number of vehicles actually available to investigators
within the unit does not allow members from two separate shifts to work
cases at the same time. That is to say that day work officers who
receive a case at the beginning of their tour cannot leave the office
and begin to process the case until midnight officers return from their
assignments. As you may know, the faster Homicide detectives arrive at
the crime scene, the greater the chance for closing the case.
2. The squads within the Homicide Unit need 12 more detectives to
meet and manage the current caseload in an effective and professional
manner.
Since my letter of last October, members of the
Homicide Unit have been transferred for lack of productivity. The Chief
has refused to explain to any of the transferred Detectives, how they were
selected. He clearly has not looked at the records and caseloads of the
Detectives he chose to humiliate. If he had, he would have discovered that
several of them have exemplary records with closure rate that have
historically exceeded the average of their peers. One of the Wen he
transferred was assigned to the Cold Case Squad because of his
demonstrated excellence.
Cold Cases are the hardest cases to close. The
Detective in questions had several old cases in the Grand Jury where he
was working prosecutors to indict the people responsible. Every Homicide
investigation takes extraordinary effort, dedication and resources. These
cases take even more work than those that are solved within days or weeks
of their commission, as witnesses become disinterested, hard to locate or
even fearful as the perpetrator of the crime still walks the streets.
I am here to report to you and to our community that
Chief Ramsey's cavalier approach to the police offcers of the Metropolitan
Police Department has stripped them of self-confidence and destroyed their
morale. The Homicide Unit is just one unfortunate example of a Department,
which feels betrayed by its Chief. You police officers cannot be
effective, if they do not feel they are supported -by their Chief, the
Mayor or their community. If they are not supported how can we expect them
to risk their lives and their jobs in the face of criminals. Many of us
feel that we have become the subject of ridicule, mistrust and malicious
prosecution within the Metropolitan Police Department. Unfortunately,
their reluctance to get involved in their duties under these circumstances
is beginning to show.
Homicide as a case in point, demonstrated that the
Chief would rather publicly ridicule a hand full of detectives than
provide the resources they need to do their work. If you are serious about
increasing the closure rate, you should double the number of detectives
assigned to the Homicide Unit and provide them adequate resources to
investigate and close cases without fear of cheap shots from their Chief.
The Union has mailed out more than three thousand
surveys to the men and women of the Metropolitan Police Department. We are
asking them to assess themselves, our Department and Chief Ramsey. The
results of that survey will be made public within a few weeks as we get
our members' responses and tabulate the results.
I hope this is useful. I invite your questions. |
