D.C. Police Agree to U.S. Retraining Pact

Police in the nation’s capital have used excessive force far too often in recent years and will have to undergo extensive retraining and monitoring under an unusual agreement between the District of Columbia and the federal government, officials said Wednesday.

The pact reflects what Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is billing as a new and less confrontational approach to solving problems of police misconduct.

President Bush has made clear that he does not like the idea of federal authorities routinely “second-guessing” local police. Rather than forcing cities with police problems, such as Los Angeles, to agree to court-ordered reforms, Ashcroft said he wants to strike a more conciliatory tone and reach cooperative agreements outside the courtroom.

In Washington, city officials took the unheard-of step in 1999 of asking the Justice Department to investigate why its officers were resorting to force so frequently. After a spate of negative publicity over police shootings, District of Columbia Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said the department no longer had the credibility to investigate itself.

The Justice Department looked at about 1,400 use-of-force incidents involving Washington police from 1994 to 1999, and the results were sobering. Investigators found that the amount of force used in more than 15% of the cases was considered excessive, demonstrating a pattern of abuse, Ashcroft said Wednesday. The target for such episodes is 1% to 2%.

As a result of the findings, city officials agreed to enter into an agreement with the Justice Department aimed at reining in the use of force by their officers. The agreement will require the city to retrain officers in how best to avoid dangerous situations, bring in an outside monitor to review problems, expand internal investigations and put in place an “early warning” system for problem officers, among other reforms.

The provisions are similar to those put in place in Justice Department agreements with Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, the state of New Jersey and several other jurisdictions under a 1994 federal law that was triggered by the Rodney G. King beating in Los Angeles.

But unlike those earlier decrees, the Washington agreement will not require court approval unless future problems develop. And Ashcroft said that the city has already put in place reforms that are paying dividends, such as the increased use of less-than-lethal weapons.

Fatal police shootings in the district fell to two last year from 16 in the mid-1990s, Ashcroft said. He cited the agreement as a “model” for how the Justice Department can combat police abuses.

Some civil rights leaders are worried that Ashcroft, with his new spotlight on cooperating with local police, is seeking to back away from the aggressive federal watchdog role espoused at the Justice Department by former Atty. Gen. Janet Reno.

But Ramsey said the new agreement has teeth.

“We’ll be held accountable, not only to the Justice Department but also the community, for how we perform,” Ramsey said. “The teeth are very simple. If we don’t come into compliance, we can be taken to court [by the Justice Department]. And quite frankly, if we were taken to court, I don’t think we’d stand much chance of winning.”