The D.C. police chief’s departure should inspire a look at all aspects of public safety
But what really seems to be driving Newsham out of town is his toxic relationship with the D.C. Council. In June, the corrosion reached the point where Newsham told his officers that the council had “completely abandoned” them by adopting sweeping emergency police reform measures. He also publicly scolds lawmakers who oversee his department and rebukes their efforts to delve into his officers’ actions.
For instance, when Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, conducted a public hearing to examine policing tactics in a troubled neighborhood of Northeast D.C. — a major concern of residents — Newsham said the inquiry “emboldened” drug dealers.
When Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1), who chairs the council’s Human Services Committee, wrote an opinion piece in The Post calling for police to halt stop-and-frisk tactics until a council-enacted law requiring data collection on such activity was fully implemented, Newsham fired back with a letter to the editor accusing the legislator of spreading “misinformation.”
Just last week, Newsham’s police department posted this Twitter statement on a council bill aimed at increasing prisoners’ opportunities for release from jail: “Gun-related crime has increased dramatically in DC. Councilmember Allen is pushing for legislation that will provide for the early release of hundreds of violent gun offenders. This impact on victims & our community can’t be overlooked.”
The tweet notwithstanding, on Monday, Allen’s committee approved the bill, which allows some prisoners convicted before the age of 25 of violent crimes — including murder and sexual offenses — to be freed once they have served 15 years of their sentences.
On Tuesday, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors announced that Newsham was coming aboard.
The extent to which Newsham and the council are out of touch with each other became strikingly apparent recently. Council members were quarreling with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) decision to redirect unspent city funds to cover the police department’s $43 million overtime costs. The lawmakers claimed (or is the word “feigned”?) surprise at the amount.
Said Nadeau, “We are not even telling them that they can’t spend the money. We are just saying we need to see what you’re spending.”
Did everybody on the council not already know? In every large organization, there are always some people who don’t get the word. But an entire city legislature?
Police overtime spending is no dark secret that has been buried deeply in the bowels of the bureaucracy.
The issue of the rising cost of police department overtime is spelled out in black and white in documents accessible to each of the 13 council members. D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson told — or should I say, reminded — them in an Oct. 27, 2020, letter how they could access police spending in real time through the city’s financial system. By the way, as Patterson wrote, that’s one of the features the council itself “built into the financial system following the city’s financial crisis in the 1990s.”
Patterson pointed to the police department’s third-quarter report, which estimated the department would incur a $37.3 million deficit caused by overtime spending related to First Amendment protest “imposed by the death of George Floyd.”
There was also the quarterly report for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, which showed that as of the end of June 2020, the police department had overspent its budget by about $16 million or 4 percent over its anticipated expenditures.
But it’s not police overtime that really has the council up in arms. It is what Nadeau calls “over-policing of our communities” that drives the council’s animus.
Several members say they view Newsham’s departure as an opportunity to determine what policing in the city will look like in the future. Fair enough.
They also need to take a hard look at what policing, the state of public safety and the quality of council oversight look like now. All fall short of what’s needed.
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