Prosecutions Considered in Bias Probe
by Sewell Chan, Washington Post
Twenty-four District police officers have been given suspensions in a continuing internal investigation into the use of squad car computers to send offensive or threatening e-mail, senior police officials said yesterday.
The suspensions are the most serious discipline to date in the department-wide probe, which began in February 2001. It has involved screening hundreds of thousands of electronic messages for improper words and phrases, including racist, sexist or homophobic language.
Assistant Chief Peter J. Newsham, who heads the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, said yesterday that 450 of the department’s 3,600 officers might be implicated, meaning that they might have sent a message with offensive or inappropriate language. In some cases, he said, the offense was minor -- a single swear word, for example.
Newsham also said the U.S. attorney’s office is reviewing five cases for possible prosecution on civil rights charges. Prosecutors did not file charges in 14 other cases referred for potential prosecution last year, but those officers will receive departmental punishment, Newsham said.
In addition to the five cases being weighed, he said, police officials have recommended an “adverse action,” the most serious category of departmental sanction, against 44 officers. Twenty-four received suspensions, and 20 were given lesser penalties, including reprimands. The suspensions were first reported Saturday by WTTG-TV (Channel 5).
Not all the suspensions have been served. An unknown number of officers have appealed their punishments to Chief Charles H. Ramsey. Appeals often take months or years.
The ombudsman who handles complaints from civilians about police misconduct in the District applauded the suspensions as a sign that the department is enforcing the city’s prohibitions against biased treatment and inappropriate language by police.
“They send a positive message to citizens that this department is serious about greater police accountability,” said Philip K. Eure, executive director of the D.C. Office of Citizen Complaint Review.
D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), who chairs the Committee on the Judiciary, which oversees the police, said officials “are sending the appropriate message, that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.”
But the probe, now in its 19th month, has taken too long, she said.
“I think this is something that should have been wrapped up much faster,” she said. “It’s the kind of thing that needs to be handled quickly so that the entire department isn’t under a cloud.”
The messages were sent from computers installed in patrol cars in 1998 so officers could check license plate numbers and addresses and communicate more easily.
The offensive or threatening messages were uncovered after Ramsey ordered a review of internal e-mail in February 2001 based on reports in other jurisdictions where e-mail systems had been abused. The department now regularly checks for misuse, Newsham said.
By October, investigators had come up with 5,300 questionable or offensive messages sent over a 12-month period before the probe began and sorted them into three categories. The first, most serious category involved threats against citizens and accounted for about 4 percent of the messages. The second, hostile or threatening remarks about co-workers, made up about 46 percent. The third, messages that used inappropriate language or chatter unrelated to police work, made up roughly half.
Newsham said his office is completing its investigation into the most serious level of messages and has begun to take up the second level. Eight of the 25 internal affairs investigators in the 80-person office are working on the probe, he said.
Sgt. Gerald G. Neill Jr., who chairs the Fraternal Order of Police labor committee that represents 3,200 District officers, repeated the union’s position that the episode has been overblown.
“They haven’t proven one case that rose to the level of racism, or one case where an officer was racist and took actions against a citizen because of racism. And they won’t,” he said.
He added that in the cases of the suspended officers, “the officers who felt their comments were inappropriate have taken responsibility for that and moved on.”