Report Calls D.C. Police Mismanaged

The District of Columbia Police Department is in disarray, plagued by mismanagement, wasteful spending, lost evidence and blown cases, and has an unguarded property warehouse and drug lab piled high with guns and narcotics that are “vulnerable to direct attack,” according to confidential consultants’ reports obtained by the Washington Post.

The reports, prepared for the department, found appalling conditions in the police evidence warehouse. An officer was critically injured last year, for example, when he accidentally spilled the hallucinogenic drug PCP on himself while trying to maneuver in a crowded work space. Medical evidence from rape victims routinely spoiled in a storage area’s 110-degree heat.

Narcotics and guns are stored in a “ready-made shack.” The reports say there is “absolutely no security force” on the premises at night, only alarms and motion detectors.

Officers and civilians steal gasoline from police fuel pumps. Officials cannot find 7% of the cars assigned to the department’s seven district stations. Many felony cases are dismissed because computers crash and evidence is lost.

The consultants also found poor personnel deployment. Officers who might have been fighting crime instead were assigned to low-level choresin a mail room, as file clerks, in the administrative folders section and in the photo gallery division.

The reports, by consulting firm Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc., recommended taking 157 officers out of a few administrative divisions and placing them on street patrols.

The D.C. financial control board and Police Chief Larry D. Soulsby repeatedly refused to release the reports, which were prepared by Booz-Allen under a $5-million contract with the control board. But control board Vice Chairman Stephen D. Harlan, who has overseen reforms at the police department, spoke Tuesday of the problems identified in the reports.

“The culture of city government, not just the Police Department, had been allowed to disintegrate to a very, very low level,” Harlan said. “The management of various [police] departments--technology, fleet, warehouse--is in a great state of disrepair.”

Booz-Allen is still working on a report on the Police Department’s troubled homicide unit. But after being briefed on the unit’s dismal case-closure rate and other problems, Soulsby last month purged its leadership, transferring the unit’s commander and 17 supervisors.

The Police Department has made some progress. Violent crime has dropped 18% in the last year since the department concentrated officers in high crime areas.

But the Booz-Allen reports obtained by the Post found that mismanagement and antiquated record-keeping continue to plague improvement efforts. These are among the findings:

* Much of the evidence in storage is more than 10 years old and misclassified. Booz-Allen recommended getting rid of 96% of it.

* Juvenile crime-fighting is plagued by mismanagement. Three different police units investigate abuse and neglect of children, sex offenses and pedophilia; they fail to share basic information.

* There is “no ability to account for usage” of vehicles and fuel.

* Fifty-eight officers are assigned to monitoring prisoners. Booz-Allen concluded that all could be replaced by civilians and reassigned to street patrols.

* Twenty-six full-time police employees spend all their working time--52,000 labor hours per year--transporting prisoners and waiting for them to be processed. Consultants suggest cutting the work hours by 60%.

* The Police Department pays far more than the market rate for leases on three buildings.

Soulsby did not dispute most of the findings and embraced most of the recommendations.

Booz-Allen’s reports estimated it would cost $74 million to make the department function efficiently.

Booz-Allen also found many lost opportunities for savings. For instance, the Police Department stores over $3 million in seized cash in a vault; the consultants recommend putting at least $1.7 million of that in a savings account and reaping $102,000 a year in interest.