Be very careful, Dorothy, Washington ain't Kansas

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 4, 1997 | by Thomas Berson

Though estimates of the total federal police presence in Washington are as high as 14,000 officers -- not including the district's 3,600 municipal police officers -- the crime rate continues to soar. Why?

Washington Mayor Marion Barry still is trying to remove his foot from his mouth after announcing on CNN's Evans & Novak program July 5 that the nation's capital is as "safe or safer than Topeka [Kansas]." During the Independence Day holiday weekend there were six murders in Washington -- as many as Topeka has had all year.

On July 8, House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote to President Clinton: "I challenge you to come up with a comprehensive action plan within the next 30 days that deals with the full scale of the [Washington crime] problem and lays out how you would make the city safer for its residents and guests."

The rate of violent crime in Washington, population 540,000, is astronomical. As of July 6th there had been 153 homicides, 137 rapes, 3,082 robberies and 3,173 assaults with deadly weapons. The city averages almost 60,000 serious crimes per year -- a rate that dwarfs those of such cities of similar size as El Paso, Seattle and Boston. Aggravated-assault and homicide rates in Washington during the first half of 1996 were between two and 20 times higher then in those cities; Washington's per-capita crime rates in these categories range from three to seven times the national averages. No, Mr. Mayor, we definitely are not in Kansas.

While Washington is up to its monuments in crime, what often is overlooked is that it's also knee-deep in police officers. There are at least 6,133 armed federal law-enforcement officers in the nation's capital, and estimates on the total federal law-enforcement personnel range as high as 14,000. Only three states -- New York, Texas and California -- have more than 6,133 federal officers. Add them to Washington's municipal Metropolitan Police Department, or MPD, and there will be at least 17.4 law-enforcement officers for every 1,000 residents -- more than seven times the national average.

While politicians from both sides of the aisle preach about the need to put more police on the streets, however, a surprisingly small number of officers -- federal or local -- actually patrols the streets of the city. The MPD's inability to reduce crime has been attributed to mismanagement, but the segregated cloistering of federal officers doesn't help. Most of those who aren't occupied by national or international investigations and projects are assigned to fixed posts in secure federal facilities with narrowly defined jurisdictions that barely extend to the city's sidewalks. In many cases, a federal police officer who witnesses a crime on a city street must call 911 to notify the local cops. If they do make an arrest on a city street, they turn the paperwork over to MPD officers.

In May, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton proposed legislation in the House that would direct 28 federal law-enforcement agencies in Washington to extend their jurisdictions and donate resources to the MPD, challenging federal officers to "come out here where the real crime is." It would include the Secret Service, General Services Administration, postal authorities -- all 28 agencies. Norton says it's high time federal officers started pulling their weight. "They're not doing their jobs," Norton tells Insight. "It's absurd. Why can't they take care of their own areas so our officers can police greater Washington?"

The plan would build on the success of a 1992 Norton bill which expanded the U.S. Capitol Police's role on Capitol Hill. Crime has dropped slightly in the extended jurisdiction, which they share with MPD, while crime in surrounding neighborhoods remains a problem. Before the Capitol Police had their jurisdiction extended, says Capitol Police Sgt. Dan Nichols, "it had gotten to the point where people were stopping our cars on the street and we had to say "Sorry can't help you." By giving the Capitol Police freedom to make arrests in nearby areas, some officers say, the department has been able to eliminate crime on the periphery and make the core areas of Capitol Hill safer.

If it worked for the Capitol Police, it can work for the other federal law-enforcement agencies still fenced in by their narrow jurisdictions without being allowed to make arrests on city streets, says Eric H. Holder Jr., the US. attorney for Washington. Holder -- a former federal judge who received the Senate Judiciary Committee's unanimous endorsement June 24 to become deputy attorney general -- says he has seen plenty of evidence in criminal cases suppressed because of jurisdictional issues. "That doesn't make any sense," he tells Insight. "We need to put on paper what a lot of these agencies are already doing and what a lot of them want to be doing." Rep. Tom Davis, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee on the District of Columbia, sees the idea as a sensible, practical solution to Washington's crime problem that complements plans to rescue the fiscally challenged city. "This is a city unlike other cities," explains Davis, the architect of a bailout plan which incorporates Norton's proposal. "Federal responsibility is greater here."