D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has ordered all 3,800 officers on the city streets this weekend for another “All Hands on Deck” effort, but some officers are questioning whether the initiatives have become more public relations than policing.
The city has been rocked by 14 homicides in 11 days, the most since last summer, when the previous police chief declared a crime emergency after D.C. witnessed 13 killings in less than two weeks.
On Halloween night, there were seven shootings, a homicide and an armed carjacking in Adams Morgan that resulted in a fatal police shooting.
Lanier is calling all available officers in today and Saturday to perform additional foot patrols, serve warrants on the most violent criminals, provide traffic enforcement, and listen to the concerns of residents and business owners.
But a number of officers, who asked not to be named for fear of angering the boss, questioned the effectiveness of “All Hands.”
The officers say the periodic efforts leave the force short of patrols in the aftermath because officers are taking days off to make up for working weekends.
And they say crime patterns vary by area and that in some cases, weekends are more quiet than weekdays.
Kristopher Baumann, head of the police union, echoed some of those concerns.
Of the 14 homicides since Oct. 21, he said, only one occurred on a Friday or Saturday.
Lanier’s plan contradicts earlier promises she made to let her commanders — the supervisors most familiar with their assigned areas’ particular crime patterns — determine where to focus their resources, critics said.
“I don’t know how putting everyone to work on Friday and Saturday fits with that plan,” Baumann said.
Charis Kubrin, a criminologist for the George Washington University sociology department, said putting the entire department on duty likely won’t stop the violence or prevent any homicides.
But their presence might deter preplanned crimes such as burglaries or robberies, Kubrin said.
As of Thursday, there were 161 homicides, nearly as many as the District suffered in all of 2006, when it finished with 169.
Last year marked the fewest homicides in 21 years in the District.
Police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said conducting the initiative five times a year was “a far cry from determining how commanders use their resources.”
The first three All Hands on Deck weekends netted more than 1,500 arrests.
The police department will conduct another All Hands on Deck in early December.
“The point is to get the bad folks off the streets,” Hughes said, “not for public relations.”
