By Clarence Williams, The Washington Post
Officers assigned to the realigned 3rd District police service areas (PSAs), covering Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant and a strip of Georgia Avenue, would have many of the busiest beats in the city if new maps under review by the D.C. City Council go into effect.
The 3rd District PSA officers would be charged with controlling nightclub crowds, curbing marijuana and cocaine sales, patrolling areas threatened by street gangs, policing an open-air heroin market and dealing with the violence spurred by such activities.
D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said the plan they submitted to the D.C. Council last month, trimming the number of PSAs citywide from 83 to 43, will free resources to attack crime in the areas that need the most help.
In the 3rd District, the number of PSAs would be cut from 14 to 7, increasing the size of each one significantly.
Each PSA would be staffed differently, depending on the level and type of crime in the area. PSA 301, covering the Crestwood area, would have a minimum of 21 officers. PSA 306, in the south and covering Dupont Circle, would have a minimum of 86 officers. The other proposed new PSAs would be staffed with the following complement of officers: PSA 302, 66; PSA 303, 30; PSA 304, 28; PSA 305, 43; and PSA 307, 49. As part of a citywide realignment, all PSAs are being merged into larger patrol areas that would be policed by the city’s nearly 1,600 patrol officers. Police officials say they hope to implement the plan after the D.C. Council completes a 60-day review in March.
Although the idea of PSAs is to create small areas in which police officers and residents get to know one another, officials acknowledged that a lack of staffing has caused some areas to be inadequately patrolled at times. They say the new, larger PSAs will be easier to staff properly.
The proposed changes would align the 3rd District beats with Ward 1 political boundaries, a move D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) has long supported. Currently, Ward 1 straddles the 3rd and 4th police districts.
Graham, along with fellow council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), pushed Ramsey to shake up the PSA system last year, and although the new 3rd District would include areas with a lot of serious crime, Graham says he is pleased that the ward will be under one commander, Larry McCoy.
Adams Morgan is now part of three separate PSAs, which has created confusion and discouraged citizen involvement.
“No one went to a PSA meeting, because no one knew what it was about,” Graham said. “The key issue here is getting everyone in Ward 1 under one command. It’s getting the police energies focused.”
But Advisory Neighborhood Commission representative Lenwood Johnson fears that his home near Georgia Avenue and Columbia Road will be grouped into the “highest-crime PSA in the city,” with drugs, thugs and prostitution under one patrol area.
“That’s a whole lot of ground to cover for so much serious crime,” Johnson said. “That’s going to make the 4th District’s crime stats prettier. . . . The 3rd District’s commander is going to get a whole lot of heat. I feel so sorry for Commander McCoy.”
Graham, community leaders and even McCoy agree that the department will need to provide proper staffing to handle such a volume and wide range of service calls. The 100 or so officers assigned to the police substation on Park Road NW would be transferred from the 4th to the 3rd District.
Police reported that violent crime in the 3rd District fell by 5 percent last year, compared with 2002, including a 28 percent drop in assaults with deadly weapons, but robberies increased by 11 percent. And while burglaries dipped 25 percent, other property crimes rose: Vehicle thefts increased by 10 percent, and thefts by 16 percent.
Just north of Howard University, ANC representative Kelvin Esters said police already are strained to close drug markets and patrol streets regularly. The current PSAs aren’t working as effectively as residents were previously told, he said, so he doesn’t see how increasing the size of patrol areas will help.
“They tell us about bicycle patrols and foot patrols, but we rarely see that now,” Esters said. “We hope it’s going to be different, but it’s a wait-and-see attitude.”
Lawrence Guyot, a longtime activist and ANC member, complains that the new maps should have been designed along neighborhood commission boundaries to create more accountability and connection with the community. ANC members are elected to represent roughly 2,000 citizens. Residents who attend PSA meetings represent themselves.