Charles Allen turns up the heat on D.C. Police Chief
By Jeffrey Anderson
Fresh off passing emergency legislation that “radically” rethinks how D.C. conducts public safety, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen increased the pressure on D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham on Thursday by requiring a “mandatory review” next year to determine whether Newsham gets to keep his job.
The move by Allen, chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, amends D.C. law and “creates a term of office for the position of Chief of Police of 4-years, effective May 2, 2017,” which is the date Newsham was sworn in.
The Committee voted 4-0 to approve the change through the budget process during a time of feverish police reform across the country. If the D.C. Council approves the amendment to the law, Newsham will be evaluated next year on a number of reforms approved earlier this month that have yet to become final.
Some of those issues, such as a rising number of use of force incidents and a problematic police body worn camera policy, have been languishing in the Judiciary Committee since last year.
All of this comes as Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed increasing the police budget, and as angry protestors confront Newsham’s officers each night, baiting them with persistent taunts and aiming to tear down historic statues.
Periodic threats by the President of the United States to order a federal takeover of D.C.’s police functions have exacerbated tensions surrounding local politics, police command decisions and the atmosphere in the streets.
Police experts say Allen is getting caught up in the “Defund The Police” movement that is sweeping the nation, and inserting himself into the affairs of the management of the chief of police.
“This is bad legislation,” said Terrence Straub, co-chair of the Washington D.C. Police Foundation, which provides financial and in-kind resources to the Metropolitan Police Department through business, professional, civic and nonprofit organizations looking to promote public safety.
“It’s what you get when you are in a virtual panic to get on a reform bandwagon.”
One colleague called Allen’s legislative maneuverings a “bait-and-switch,” an attempt to mollify the activist anti-police movement while he preserves some of the budget increase Bowser is seeking.
In May, Bowser proposed increasing the MPD’s budget by $45 million. Allen’s committee, also by a vote of 4-0, slashed that figure by $15.1 million, and identified $20 million of operating dollars and $6.25 million of capital dollars to support his “reimaging” of the role of the police and the criminal justice system through public safety efforts that are outside of D.C.’s law enforcement.
In seeking to hold Newsham accountable via retroactive statute, Allen says he also is advancing an ongoing reform effort by imposing a check on Bowser:
“The Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department wields significant influence in the District and commands an armed force of thousands,” he said, in a rapid reading of a statement that his colleagues on the Committee learned about the night before Thursday’s budget markup.
“With the power that stems from holding this position comes a responsibility to provide strong leadership, which includes maintaining collaborative relationships with governmental partners.
“The Committee believes that because of the tremendous authority of the position, a mechanism must exist to evaluate performance and qualifications required for the position.”
Newsham, in an email to District Dig, said the proposal is “an unprecedented move, and is clearly an attempt by Charles Allen to silence anyone who criticizes his ‘defund the police’ stance.”
But Allen defended his action by comparing it to retroactive revisions to the terms of other agency heads under his committee’s purview, and Newsham’s predecessors, former chiefs of police Cathy Lanier and Charles Ramsey.
“Both Chief Charles Ramsey and Chief Cathy Lanier were also subject to terms of office,” Allen said in his statement, noting that the Council also has retroactively imposed terms of office on the Chief Medical Examiner and the Director of the Department of Forensic Sciences.
“It’s built off of precedent,” he told The Dig, in a call following the budget markup. “Exact same thing.”
Besides, Allen continued, “Every chief of police is incredibly important. I’ve got to ask the voters for my job every four years. Why shouldn’t they?”
A closer reading of history shows some key distinctions, however, when comparing apples to apples.
The Council bills that revised the salary and benefits packages for Ramsey and Lanier were specific to them. The amendment to the law that Allen’s committee approved yesterday will be applicable to future chiefs of police, and could inform the decisions of future candidates when considering whether to take a job in D.C.
Those revisions were about pay packages and made no mention of either Ramsey or Lanier having to go before the Council to justify continuing to serve based on their ability to implement new policies or maintain “collaborative relationships with governmental partners.”
In 2006, the Council passed the “Separation Pay, Term of Office & Voluntary Retirement Modification for Chief Charles H. Ramsey Amendment Act,” which, retroactive to 2003, subjected Ramsey to a five-year term, increased his annuity in case of voluntary retirement, and modified his separation pay provisions in the event he was fired.
Ramsey was hired in 1998 after he did not land the job as chief of police in Chicago. Crime was high in D.C. and he was taking over for a chief the city had just fired. He wanted to ensure he would not lose money in his retirement, according to the memorandum to the Council from Chairman Phil Mendelson, then an at-large member and chair of the Judiciary Committee.
“The Committee recognizes that breaking the promise made to Chief Ramsey could have a chilling effect on the District’s ability to recruit exceptional candidates for future Executive level positions,” Mendelson wrote.
By that time, “the per-capita crime rate in the District of Columbia is the lowest it has been since 1969,” Mendelson wrote, evoking D.C.’s deadly nickname of yesteryear: “murder capital” of the United States.
In Lanier’s case, the “Retention Incentives for Chief of Police Cathy L. Lanier Amendment Act of 2012” amended the law to place a five-year term on Lanier’s contract retroactive to January 2, 2012, and established a lump-sum payment and temporary extension of health benefits in the event she was fired–an unlikely event, given that she enjoyed widespread popularity.
Though Council records show Allen has supported emergency legislation granting Newsham a generous annuity of some $200,000 a year–for life–Thursday’s hearing was not about the Chief’s pay package.
While installing a performance review mechanism for the Council, Allen emphasized that the Mayor could always re-nominate Newsham or change directions with an infusion of new leadership. (Allen confirmed that he and Bowser had a “private conversation” following the vote.)
Allen further justified his move, saying there is plenty of time for Newsham and his department to “figure out what the path forward is,” based on new policies being vetted by the Council. “It’s a decision point that does not come until next year,” he said. “I could see it rightly criticized if we were requiring it in the next 60 or 90 days.”
Yet the move also comes as tensions have arisen in recent weeks between Newsham and Allen and other members of the Council. Former law enforcers and experts say Allen has opened himself up to the perception that he is not entirely motivated by a policy agenda.
“The chief already goes before the Council every year to testify regarding the budget and they get to judge his performance,” says Patrick Burke, Executive Director of the Police Foundation. “This seems to lend a perception of some acquiescence to a public outcry [from critics of the police] and a bit of back-and-forth between the Chief and the Council.”
Burke, a former U.S. Marshal for D.C. and former Assistant Chief of the MPD, where he served for 27 years, is referring to heated exchanges earlier this month as Allen was introducing emergency legislation.
Observers were stunned when Allen cut Newsham’s testimony short in a budget hearing just after he first proposed his legislation. Newsham has told his officers he has felt abandoned by the Council, and Allen has fired back with comments questioning Newsham’s leadership.
“This seems like a knee-jerk, ‘hey, you report to us,’ type of statement,” Burke said. “I think it’s a bit of showmanship.”
Burke and others who spoke to The Dig expressed disappointment that a more constructive dialogue is not taking place between Newsham and the Council. “The concern is this is happening so quickly,” Burke said. “It’s not the police versus the Council, or the community versus the police. It needs to be the police and the Council working with the community.”
Some D.C. government observers are shaking their heads and rolling their eyes. “When politics becomes more important than policy, then no one tends to win,” said a veteran politics watcher.
Allen’s colleagues dismissed any notion that his retroactive review amendment to the law is a vote of no confidence.
Yet some veteran D.C. officials questioned whether it was appropriate of Allen to put Newsham up for review through the budget process, since the amendment doesn’t really pertain to the budget.
Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, who teaches constitutional law at George Washington University, spoke favorably of “re-imagining” the city’s approach to public safety, and expressed approval of establishing a term of office for the police chief.
But before she cast her vote, Cheh said the Council “probably should have a fuller discussion” before giving final approval.
Allen’s reforms are long term shifts in policy and funding, but it’s unclear what they have to do with Newsham’s performance, not just of late, but over the last three years.
Particularly coming as they do in the heat of an explosive nationwide reaction to police-related events across the country.
Asked whether he thinks it’s fair to pass retroactive legislation that places Newsham’s job at the center of that discussion, Allen said, “If you don’t feel the chief of police should be subject to being under the microscope at all times then we’re having two different conversations.”
