According to a Washington Post report Sunday, 24 Metropolitan Police Department officers have been arrested on charges ranging from attempted murder to drunk driving since the beginning of the year.
Sound like a lot? It is a lot for the 3,700-officer department: The figures work out to 6.6 arrests per 1,000 officers. The New York Police Department has only arrested 2 out every 1,000 of its officers this year. And, according to the Post, of 4,700 officers serving six suburban jurisdictions surrounding D.C., only five have been arrested. Among those who have pleaded guilty or are awaiting final action are:
-Officer Mortel Samuels, 38, who is suspected of shooting a 16-year-old Baltimore teenager in each of his legs in May. The Baltimore resident has been suspended without pay pending the outcome of the case.
-Officer Juan Rios, Jr., 45, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sex assault charge. Rios responded to a domestic disturbance call in Northwest Washington, and took a woman involved to a nearby apartment used as a satellite police center. There, he disrobed and tried to have sex with the woman.
-Vice officer Jacob A. Lipscomb, 28, who pleaded guilty to drunk driving in July. He rammed his Jeep into a patrol car on Interstate 295 last November. Tests revealed Lipscomb was driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.28 percent, three times the legal limit.
MPD chief Charles H. Ramsey said last week that this rash of arrests does not indicate a systemic problem. “I don’t know how that’s [evidence of] no moral guidelines for the whole department,” Ramsey said in the Post. “That’s the act of one individual.”
Ramsey is correct that these are the crimes of individuals, but it is troubling that so many of those individuals are officers of the law. Perhaps some solace can be found that these officers did not commit their crimes while on duty: In 1993, twelve MPD officers were caught offering police protection to drug traffickers in an FBI sting.
But those arrests and these recent arrests may have a common root: mismanagement. The officers arrested in 1993 were hired as part of a hiring binge forced by federal funding requirements in 1989 and 1990 that led MPD to cut corners on its application and training process, including performing only cursory background checks. More recently, according to Gary Hankins, a police union consultant, the MPD has had to compete with other departments offering better pay and benefits, while recruiting and screening problems continue.
The occasional arrest of an officer for drunk driving or other misdemeanors is dismaying, but it is not necessarily alarming. Yet the sheer number of MPD officers being arrested sounds an alarm that must be heeded. Wage and benefi standards need to be raised and recruits need to be more thoroughly vetted before they are handed a badge and gun. Washington’s faith in its police depends on it.
