[Senate Hearing 105-345]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 105-345
FIGHTING CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: CAPITAL
PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF
GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING,
AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 30, 1997
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
40-459 cc WASHINGTON : 1998
_______________________________________________________________________
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office,
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee, Chairman
WILLIAM V. ROTH, JR., Delaware JOHN GLENN, Ohio
TED STEVENS, Alaska CARL LEVIN, Michigan
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
DON NICKLES, Oklahoma MAX CLELAND, Georgia
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
Hannah S. Sistare, Staff Director and Counsel
Leonard Weiss, Minority Staff Director
Michal Sue Prosser, Chief Clerk
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING, AND
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman
WILLIAM V. ROTH, JR., Delaware JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania MAX CLELAND, Georgia
Ron Utt, Staff Director
Laurie Rubenstein, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Esmeralda Amos, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Brownback............................................ 1
Senator Lieberman............................................ 3
Senator Cleland.............................................. 4
WITNESSES
Wednesday, April 30, 1997
Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a U.S. Senator from the State of Texas 5
Tracie Gibson, Widow of District of Columbia Officer Brian Gibson 7
Stephen D. Harlan, Vice Chairman, District of Columbia Financial
Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority............. 11
Gary Mather, Senior Vice President, Booz-Allen and Hamilton, Inc.
accompanied by James Stewart, Principal, Booz-Allen and
Hamilton, Inc.................................................. 14
Larry D. Soulsby, Chief of Police, District of Columbia Police
Department..................................................... 16
Hon. Eugene N. Hamilton, Chief Judge, Superior Court of the
District of Columbia........................................... 18
Robert Moffit, Deputy Director for Domestic Policy Studies, The
Heritage Foundation............................................ 29
C. Stephen Wallis, Washington, D.C. Area School Administrator.... 31
Carol Schwartz, District of Columbia City Council Member......... 37
Rev. H. Beecher Hicks, Jr., Senior Minister, Metropolitan Baptist
Church......................................................... 39
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Gibson, Tracie:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Hamilton, Hon. Eugene N.:
Testimony.................................................... 18
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 89
Harlan, Stephen D.:
Testimony.................................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Hicks, Rev. H. Beecher, Jr.:
Testimony.................................................... 39
Prepared statement........................................... 156
Hutchison, Hon. Kay Bailey:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 47
Mather, Gary:
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 61
Moffit, Robert:
Testimony.................................................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 125
Schwartz, Carol:
Testimony.................................................... 37
Prepared statement........................................... 153
Soulsby, Larry D.:
Testimony.................................................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 79
Wallis, C. Stephen:
Testimony.................................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 149
APPENDIX
Prepared statements of witnesses in order of appearance.......... 47
Article in The Washington Post,'' by Stephen D. Harlan, dated
April 27, 1997, page C07, entitled ``We Can Cut Crime.''....... 58
Senator Paul Strauss, Shadow U.S. Senator elected by the Voters
of the District of Columbia, prepared statement................ 161
Senator Florence Howard Pendleton, U.S. Senator/ns District of
Columbia, prepared statement................................... 166
FIGHTING CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: CAPITAL
PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 1997
U.S. Senate,
Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring,
and the District of Columbia Subcommittee,
of the Committee on Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:06 p.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam
Brownback, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Brownback, Lieberman, and Cleland.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROWNBACK
Senator Brownback. We will go ahead and start this hearing.
It is the fourth in our series of oversight hearings on how
Congress can effectively work with the District of Columbia to
help solve some of the major problems facing our Nation's city,
Washington, DC.
I would like to start this hearing off, if I could,
recognizing a terrible tragedy that has taken place in this
city with the death of three police officers this year in the
District of Columbia, which I hope causes us all to pause and
to think just what has happened here, of what has occurred. We
will hear testimony from Ms. Gibson, her husband of course
involved in one of those tragedies earlier this year.
But I would hope we could just pause and reflect and think
about these three officers killed in the line of duty. Officer
Brian Gibson, survived by his wife, Tracie Gibson, who has
joined us here today, with her two children, Brian Gibson, aged
14 months, and Ashley Gibson, aged 11 years old. Officer Oliver
Wendell Smith, survived by his wife, Shandra Smith, and Oliver
Wendell Smith, II, 5 years old. Officer Robert Johnson, Jr.,
survived by his wife Yvette, Robert Johnson, III, 4 years old,
and Ryir Johnson, 5 months old. Of course, he was just killed
over the weekend in a terrible incident that took place that I
hope we will hear some more about.
I hope everybody in the crowd would be willing to join me
in a moment of silence and, for people of faith, if they would
join me in a moment of silent prayer for these three patriots
of our country that have fallen in the line of duty.
[Pause.]
Senator Brownback. Thank you.
This is perhaps the District's most serious problem--
exceptionally high crime rate--that has cost hundreds of
citizens their lives, the three police officers that we just
recognized, two of which were people that were actually pursued
by criminals that went after them to shoot them, and to do them
harm, and to kill them. We have had a crime wave in this city
that has affected thousands of residents and businesses, that
have fled the city, further weakening the city's economy and
financial well-being.
I have to tell you, on another personal note, that three of
my staff members have been victimized, two of them burglarized
and one a car broken into, during this past year in Washington,
DC.
Now I do take heart in some of the impressive recent
actions that happened by the Control Board and what they have
stepped in with, and their partners in the Memorandum of
Understanding that has occurred. Still, you look at the overall
factual situation of crime in the District of Columbia since
1985, homicides have risen 169 percent, robberies up 50
percent, and auto theft by a staggering 500 percent.
I hope and pray we are at the Nation's high water mark for
the amount of violent crime taking place in our country and in
our Nation's capital because it hurts our citizens, and it
hurts our schools, it hurts our communities unbelievably.
I am heartened by some of the initiatives undertaken by
mayors like Mayor Guiliani of New York City. We are now seeing
a recent example of very successful urban crime fighting that
has proven results as Mr. Harlan noted in a recent op-ed piece,
New York City has reduced major crime by 39 percent since 1993
and homicides have been cut in half.
There has been a successful implementation of the District
partnership in a Memorandum of Understanding. There has been
some immediate and decisive action that has happened in the
District of Columbia which I am very pleased to see. They have
targeted high crime neighborhoods, and put an additional 400
police officers on the streets. The results have been equally
swift and decisive. March arrests are up 72 percent. Some
measures indicate that crime rates are falling.
This is a good start, but much more needs to be done.
Today we will be looking at additional steps that can
dramatically reduce the District's crime rate, including an
increase in the penalties for committing crime--particularly
crime towards police officers.
I have to pause once again. This is almost unimaginable to
me, that people would go out and actually pursue police
officers to do them harm, to kill police officers. What has
happened in this society that we actually have that occurring--
and in our Nation's capital. We have got to take decisive
action to move forward on that. I hope the city does. We will
be hearing from the city about that.
The first panel of witnesses have such a proposal in front
of us, I wanted to have them here to speak to us on the Officer
Brian Gibson District of Columbia Police Protection Act. We
will also hear from other members of the City Council and from
the Police Department. But I hope we pause and we thank the
people that have served and we ask, What can we do now?
I would like to turn it over for an opening statement from
Senator Lieberman, the ranking minority, who has an equal
passion and care for what is happening here, as well. Senator
Lieberman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN
Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks and
congratulations to you on the leadership that you have shown
through this Subcommittee in trying to focus the attention of
the Senate and Congress more generally on the problems of the
Nation's capital in a way that is constructive, that is open to
new ideas in responding to these problems, and, most of all,
that tries to build a sense of partnership with the people who
live in and govern, and in this case, police our Nation's
capital, to see if together we cannot make all of this better.
As you indicated, the numbers here on crime, except for the
recent statistics, are not good. We all have an interest, those
who live here permanently and those of us who live here part of
the time, in seeing those numbers improve. From 1985 to 1996
homicides in the District rose 169 percent. Robbery increased
by 50 percent. Assaults were up 39 percent, and motor vehicle
theft skyrocketed by 490 percent.
Mr. Chairman, for too long residents of too many of the
District's neighborhoods have lived in fear. And for too long,
these residents have watched that crime rate rise, even as it
has decreased in most of the Nation's other major cities.
Something has happened to many people here in the District to
cut them from the ties that bind most of the people of the
District--and most of the people throughout the country--
together in a sense of community and shared values.
To me nothing demonstrates this problem more than the
disproportionate, devastating rate with which this city has
watched its police officers targeted and senselessly murdered.
Since late 1994, eight D.C. law enforcement officers have been
slain. That is a number that is so riveting that the beginning
of a response to it is just the moment of silent prayer that
you called for, Mr. Chairman, and then the continuation has to
be a collective cry to stop this from occurring.
To say the obvious--and maybe I am getting to a point where
I am old-fashioned--but we must never lose the sense that we
are all together in this, that the police officers are
representing us, that every morning that a police officer puts
on his uniform as Officer Gibson did, that officer is going out
to represent us. He or she is protecting us.
The idea that someone would turn on them use to be
unthinkable. But for too many people, the police officer has
become them as against their ``us.'' The truth is, we are all
together, and we have got to revive that fundamental sense that
the laws are adopted to protect all of us, that police officers
are sent out there every day to do a job for us. And when they
are assaulted or murdered, it is as if we have been assaulted
and part of us has been murdered.
That is why we cry out with the kind of anger that people
in the District have, that those of us who live here have, live
here as Members of Congress, and why I understand very well the
feelings that motivate Senator Hutchison in bringing this
legislation before us today.
So we look forward to hearing her testimony, and I thank
Ms. Gibson for her courage in honoring her husband's memory by
coming forward and speaking to us from her heart and her own
history and experience. I look forward to the witnesses who
will discuss the recent Booz-Allen report, which made some very
bold suggestions about how to improve law enforcement here in
the District.
The recent statistics, as the Chairman indicated, have been
encouraging. That is for a 5- or 6-week period most recently
reviewed. Our hope and prayer is that we stick with this and we
hang in there and that we, in Congress, give you as much
support as we can to make this happen.
I note with some admiration the statement made by Senator
Faircloth earlier in the week about his own willingness to
support a significant increase in the compensation for District
police officers, as a way not just to express our fair
gratitude and express it with fair compensation, but also to
hopefully build the kind of morale and the continuation of
service here by officers, too many of whom have gone on to
other police departments where the pay is higher.
This is an important afternoon for the District of
Columbia. It is also very important for Congress. And because
this is America's city, it is important for our whole country.
So I look forward to the testimony and thank all of you who
have taken time to be with us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. Senator
Cleland.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CLELAND
Senator Cleland. Certainly, Mr. Chairman, thank you very
much. I would like to make an opening statement.
It is a pleasure to be with you here. I am sorry it has to
be on the subject of crime that has taken the toll of the lives
of actual people. As someone who has worn the uniform in the
military, I can say to you that it is not fun being a target. I
think more and more of our law enforcement officers around the
Nation feel that they are.
Ms. Gibson, we are delighted to see you here and maybe
something positive can arise out of this tragedy. Senator
Hutchison, nice to see you, and nice to be with all of you.
I have no magic answer for solving crime in the country or
in D.C. I will say that, as a State Senator in my home State in
the early 1970's, I supported the death penalty and still do. I
support the death penalty for killing of police officers.
I think the question of crime is probably a lot deeper than
that. I notice that with testimony that will be delivered to us
later today, I do not want to steal anybody's thunder, but the
Heritage Foundation indicates that between 1988 and 1992, one-
fifth of all persons arrested for killing a police officer were
on probation or parole at the time of the offense. So I think
we have to look at our parole policies, and probation policies.
I also note that the recent New York Times article said
that a group of criminologists at the University of Maryland
reported to Congress, after evaluating the effectiveness of
various crime prevention programs, they found that many popular
approaches to crime, including expanded prison construction,
have had little impact in reducing crime, that most Federal
programs have been undertaken with minimal evaluation.
It did indicate some promising results from programs such
as intensified police patrols--which has been recommended by
more than just that group, intensified police patrols in high
crime areas; drug treatment programs in prisons; and early
intervention on behalf of infants in troubled families.
I would just say, Mr. Chairman, there are some good
testimony to be offered today before this Subcommittee. I have
read some of it. We just appreciate you convening this group
and this Subcommittee, so hopefully the actions that we take
can mitigate crime not only in D.C. but around the country, and
that hopefully we can find some links between criminal behavior
and the killing of police officers that hopefully will save the
lives of police officers in the future.
Thank you for your testimony today and we thank you for the
time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Cleland. Senator Kay
Bailey Hutchison, thank you for your interest in this topic,
and the floor is yours.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON,\1\ A U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Senator Hutchison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
you for calling this hearing because I think it is important
that we do everything that we can to protect the police
officers who put their lives on the line for all of us every
day.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Hutchison appears in the
Appendix on page 47.
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After the senseless tragedy in February that cost Officer
Brian Gibson his life, I introduced this bill and named it in
his honor, the ``Officer Brian Gibson District of Columbia
Police Protection Act.'' I introduced this bill because I
believe it is of utmost urgency that we let the officers know
that they are going to have every protection that we can give
them.
Right now 38 States have the death penalty. Virginia has
it. Maryland has it. The Capitol Police Corps has it. The only
people in this entire area who do not have the protection of
the death penalty for an assailant are the District of Columbia
police officers. I do not think that is right. I think it is an
inequity that must be changed.
I want to read to you, just briefly, the circumstances of
the three police officers who have been killed since February
of this year. Brian Gibson was in his patrol car in uniform.
The killer had been bounced from a bar by an off-duty
policeman. He walked up to Mr. Gibson's patrol car and shot him
in the head in cold blood.
D.C. Officer Wendell Smith was killed at his home in Prince
George's County, Maryland in February. He was in civilian
clothes. His murderer was laying in wait and killed him as he
got out of his car.
D.C. Officer Robert Johnson, who was killed just last
Saturday, was waiting outside the police station with another
officer after work. The officers identified themselves to the
murderer as policemen. The murderer then attacked both of them,
killing Mr. Johnson and injuring the other officer.
My point, Mr. Chairman, is that none of these three
officers were killed in a crime of passion. These were
premeditated murders of people because they were police
officers. Now I think if you can ever make the argument that a
death penalty is a deterrent, it is in a case where someone is
assailed in cold blood just because he is a police officer.
That is why I think it is so important that we look at this
protection for our D.C. officers.
Now I think that the other point that we must make about
this bill is that there is a disagreement about whether it
should be Congress that does this. I talked to the Mayor of the
District of Columbia and to Council Member Schwartz about this
issue. They believe, as I would expect them to, that they
should have the right to do this.
I agreed to step back. I want to go forward with the
process so that I will not lose the ability to do this if the
District does not act first. But I will give them the
opportunity to act first. I am happy to do that.
But if they are not able to do it in the next couple of
months, before they go out of session in the summer, I do
believe it is our responsibility as Congress, as it was given
to us specifically in the Constitution, to make sure that this
city functions and that we have a safe city for the people who
live here, and for all Americans. This is our capital city. It
belongs to all of us. We fund part of it as well, and it is
only a minor part of our responsibility that we would make sure
that this city runs well.
That is why I am joining with others to increase the
District officers' pay. I think that is another step that we
must take. I questioned the Chief very closely about whether
the officers have the bullet proof vests that they needed and
whether they have the cars in operating condition. I think we
have got to assure that they have all of the protections,
including the death penalty for someone who would shoot them in
cold blood, as the last three officers have been murdered.
So I am willing to work with the District in every way. I
applaud the Mayor and Ms. Schwartz for coming forward and
agreeing with me on the merits of this bill, though not
agreeing that it should be Congress' prerogative. Nevertheless,
I believe the buck stops with us.
So, if the District is not able to act, I think it is our
responsibility to give these officers the protections that they
so richly deserve. Furthermore, it will be in all of our best
interest because public safety will be better if they do have
those protections.
I truly believe, in my heart, that some of these officers
would not have been killed if someone had known that they would
face the death penalty. That is why I am going to pursue this
from my heart.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am most pleased that, since I
have named this bill in honor of Officer Gibson, that his widow
is with us today to also provide testimony for the record.
Just as a personal aside, I want to say that I watched this
whole process after the killing of Officer Gibson, and I was
moved by the dignity that Tracie Gibson showed. She was
poignant in her grief, and I think that she has shown much
courage and much commitment to be with us today to show her
support so that no other woman or man in this city will ever
have to face what she did.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Senator Hutchison,
and for your interest in this issue.
Ms. Gibson, I do not know if anybody could have introduced
you any better than what Senator Hutchison did, nor think of
you any higher. Thank you for your courage and your willingness
to be here in front of us today. The floor is yours.
TESTIMONY OF TRACIE GIBSON, WIDOW OF DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
OFFICER BRIAN GIBSON
Ms. Gibson. I would first like to thank, from the family,
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for introducing the bill in my
husband's name. I would like to thank you.
My name is Tracie Gibson. On February 5, 1997, the date of
my fourth wedding anniversary, will forever be etched in my
mind as one of the worst days of my life and the life of my
family and my friends. When my husband left for work on the
evening of February 4, nothing could have prepared me for that
dreadful awakening that I was to receive at 3 a.m. that
morning.
My husband, Master Patrol Officer Brian Theodore Anderson
Gibson, and I had laid out plans for our future and the future
of our two daughters and our other plans for other kids. These
plans will never be realized. My life and the life of my family
members were traumatized to the extent that I doubt that we
will ever be the same.
His parents were left without their son, his sister without
her only brother, his daughters without their father, and me
without my husband. My youngest child will never know the love
that her father had for her. She will only know what we tell
her about her dad. Our oldest daughter will continue special
counseling until it is felt that she can again function day-to-
day in a normal fashion.
Life is precious and each and every human is entitled to
live his or her life to the extent that is granted by God. No
human should be murdered the way that Brian was murdered. He
was doing the job that he had dreamed of doing and he was an
outstanding officer. He exhibited pride and honor in his chosen
career.
My husband realized that his job was hazardous and
dangerous. However, he was doing what he wanted to do in life.
He was proud of the protection that he was providing to the
citizens of this city. His family and friends were also very
proud of him.
Any human found guilty of murder in the first degree must
face the death penalty, especially if the murder caused the
death of a public servant who is providing protection for the
citizens of any municipality.
I cannot understand how citizens could feel that one public
servant's life carries more importance than another public
servant's life. Had my husband been a Federal officer murdered
on the exact same street that Brian was murdered on, we would
not be here today asking that justice be done in that instance,
and in two similar instances since Brian was murdered.
No one should feel that he or she can walk up to another
human being, take his or her life, and feel that there is a
possibility to walk the streets as a free person again. There
is something that is not human about this current process.
A message must be sent that there is a price and a penalty
to be paid when you take a person's life and that victims are
indeed given consideration when preyed upon by criminals.
I thank you for offering me this opportunity and time to
express some of my feelings as I attempt to go on from here
with what is left in my life. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Ms. Gibson.
Senator Hutchison, I have supported the death penalty in
the most heinous of crimes and I certainly consider it to be
applicable in this situation, where police officers would be
stalked and hunted by others in this society. But I have to
back up and just wonder, what is going on when over a period of
4 months in our Nation's capital, if the allegations are
accurate and it certainly seems like the factual basis is very
strong, three known police officers defending the rest of us
were stalked and hunted down for representing the safety of the
rest of us.
What is going on here that would cause that sort of
mentality?
Senator Hutchison. I think that is what makes this the most
heinous of crimes. You know, it is one thing when there is a
shoot-out where there is a crime of passion. But these were
cold-blooded, premeditated murders. I think that does make us
pause, and I think it means that we must address the issue that
someone would be so cavalier that they would, in a cold-blooded
way, murder police officers because they are police officers.
I think that it means we have got to address that issue.
And I think the fact that there is the death penalty in every
other part of this area, and that only the D.C. police officers
are in this situation, adds to the urgency that I have to make
sure that they have the protection. You do not see this kind of
statistic with the Capitol Police, who have this protection; or
in the near areas of Virginia or Maryland. It is something that
I think we must address and it is why I am pursuing this after
the District has its opportunity.
I am going to go right up through the process, until we can
go to the Senate floor, if this Subcommittee will vote out the
bill. I do not want to lose my rights and my time, although I
will defer to the District if they would like to move forward
first. But I do not think we can leave these people hanging out
there without their protection. It is not right and it is an
abrogation of our responsibility.
Senator Brownback. So you would like to see us vote this
bill on forward and keep it moving forward in a timely fashion,
even though you are willing to agree to some time frame for the
District itself to decide? Have you articulated a time frame
that you would like to see the District of Columbia act by?
Senator Hutchison. I believe if the District turns this
bill down sometime between now and July, when they go on their
summer recess, then I want to be able to act immediately to go
forward on this bill. If they are still in the process right up
until July 5 or July 6, or whenever they go out, and they have
not acted at that time, then I want to pursue this bill with
great urgency.
I do want to give them a reasonable amount of time, and
they certainly have been on notice of what I wanted to do since
February. I will give them that deference. But after that, I
think our responsibility takes precedence. And it is our
responsibility to assure that this city runs and I want to work
with the city in every possible way.
But I think the fact that the Mayor and Council Member
Schwartz at least are sponsoring this, shows that they, too,
see that this is something that is just right. And I hope that
we can come together, if they are not able to do it at the
District level, and move forward.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Gibson, do you have any thoughts on
this, whether it should be done in the Senate or the City
Council?
Ms. Gibson. No, I think that the Council should be given
the opportunity and it depends on what they do with that
opportunity, but I agree with the Senator.
Senator Brownback. Good. Senator Lieberman
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Your question to Senator Hutchison, of course, is just at
the heart of it all, your first question, which is why would
people do this? I tell you, we had a hearing a week or so ago
about the District's school system. Just before that hearing,
tragically, there was an incident with sexual activity among
kids in the third and fourth grade.
And I think we both had the sense that this is a sign of
accumulation of the many ways in which we are victimizing our
children and that, in some measure, it is just civilization
hitting the bottom. I think that happens when a police officer
is targeted, too, because a police officer is the symbol of
authority.
And as you pointed out, Senator Hutchison, we are not
talking here about a police officer in pursuit or a crime of
passion. These murders, in some measure, were assassinations.
These were intentional acts of murder directed against
individuals either because they were police officers, in the
case of Officer Gibson, or knowing that they were police
officers. That is why we all, in some sense, have become numb
to crime.
I have a neighbor at home in Connecticut who said if this
many people were killed by a foreign enemy, we would be on the
verge of dropping nuclear weapons on them. It would be that
devastating to us. And yet in some sense, because this happens
day after day throughout our country, we get numb to it.
What we are saying here, because of the extremity of these
acts against police officers, that it stuns us and it stuns us
in a way that all other crimes should, but this one really
stuns us so we try to react.
Incidentally, as far as my staff can determine, the numbers
here for these intentional murders of police officers are not
approached by any other major city in the country. There are
other cases where police officers have been killed, in the last
decade--nowhere near this number because they were a police
officer.
Senator Hutchison, let me just clarify----
Senator Hutchison. Senator Lieberman, I really want to just
reinforce what you said. They are assassinations, and that is
what makes them so much more unbelievable.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you. Let me clarify, and I am sure
you believe this, your hesitancy about moving forward now has
nothing to do with a concern about the legal authority of
Congress to adopt the proposal you are making? It is your own
sense of, if you will, comity or deference to the District, to
give the District Government an opportunity to do this first?
Senator Hutchison. That is exactly right, Senator. I think
Congress has the absolute power. I think there is no question
that it does. The framers of our Constitution wanted the
capital city to be everyone's city. They wanted it to be
America's city and they gave Congress the authority to make
sure that it runs.
Congress has granted home rule and therefore I want to give
the Council every opportunity. But like every city has a State
that sometimes the city does not agree with, we have much the
same relationship. We are the State to the city and I think the
city has some legitimate grievances against us, the State. But
we also have some responsibilities that we must meet.
So, I think we need to work together in everyone's best
interest and only because I would like to give the city the
opportunity to exercise home rule in this instance, I am going
to step back. But I absolutely will not wait beyond that first
part of July to move forward if it is not the will of the
Council to do so.
Senator Lieberman. I agree with you, and the analogy to the
State is a good one, particularly now because we do have the
Federal Government, in various forms, coming forward with
reform proposals to assume some of the financial
responsibilities that States have normally assumed for local
city Governments which the Federal Government has not fully
assumed previously for the District.
Ms. Gibson, let me just ask you one question. Again, you
are a very strong woman, and it gives us a sense of what your
husband was like, although I did not have the honor to know
him. He was a hero.
We are going to hear from a lot of experts for the rest of
the afternoon on ideas for what we might do to help to improve
the quality of law enforcement and safety of citizens here in
the District. You live here in the District. You have lived--
your husband was a police officer.
If you want to now, or if you want to later by submitting
something in writing, I am interested just to see whether you
would have any thoughts for us as to what Congress or the
District Government might do to protect police officers and
improve the safety of residents in the District.
Ms. Gibson. Well, one thing that comes to mind is to make
sure that every police officer has all of the equipment that
they are supposed to have, at a minimum, all the support. I do
not think that they should have to reach back for anything. I
think that everything should be right there at their
fingertips.
Definitely, the pay increase would help the morale, I would
think. There are a few other things, and I would not mind
putting them in writing, but something like the death penalty
bill, I think, would make the officers feel as if they have the
support there from the Council and the Senate.
I have a few other things----
Senator Lieberman. That is a very helpful answer and I
would welcome, and I am sure the Chairman would, any additional
thoughts you would have in writing after the hearing. Thanks
very much for being here.
Ms. Gibson. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you both very much, and we
appreciate it.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a
statement. I did not read it, but I would like for it to be in
the record.
Senator Brownback. Without objection, it will be. Thank you
very much, both of you.
The second panel will be Stephen Harlan, the Vice Chairman,
District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management
Assistance Authority; Gary Mather, Senior Vice President, Booz-
Allen and Hamilton, Incorporated; James Stewart, Principal of
Booz-Allen and Hamilton; Larry Soulsby, Chief of Police,
District of Columbia Police Department; and the Hon. Eugene N.
Hamilton, Chief Judge, Superior Court of the District of
Columbia.
We have had some studies done on the District of Columbia
police officers by the Control Board. We will hear information
on them, and also from the Chief of Police and the Chief Judge.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. I know you have a great
deal of interesting information. I have been previously briefed
on this. I believe Senator Lieberman was at the same briefing,
on some of this information.
What I would like to do is run the time clock on you at 5-
minute intervals. Can we keep it to 5 minutes, because we have
such a large panel and I have a number of questions, and I
think Senator Lieberman will, as well. So if you can take your
comments, if you need to boil them down, we will take the
written statements so that we have them in the record, and then
have plenty of time for some question and interaction.
Mr. Harlan, if you would care to start off, I hope you do
not mind those parameters. If it is too strict, we will try to
accommodate, but if you can, we would appreciate that. The
floor is yours.
TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN HARLAN,\1\ VICE CHAIRMAN, DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE
AUTHORITY
Mr. Harlan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted to be
here. My name is Stephen Donald Harlan. I am Vice Chairman of
the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and
Management Assistance Authority.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Harlan appears in the Appendix on
page 50.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In December, 1996, the Authority released a strategic plan
that we had developed. Public safety was one of the two main
critical concerns in the plan, along with others, but public
schools and public safety were right at the top of the priority
list.
In December, also, the Mayor, the Chief of Police, the
Chairman of the District Council, the Chief Judge of the
Superior Court, and the Corporation Counsel, the U.S. Attorney
and the Authority entered into a Memorandum of Understanding
that you referenced in your opening remarks.
One of the things that we decided to do early on was to
work together as a group. Reducing crime, the fear of crime,
and general disorder is something that requires a lot of
coordination and a lot of interaction with other parts of the
city, not just the police. But the police have a very major
role in that.
In December, we searched and identified a number of
possible consultants to help us in this Memorandum of
Understanding effort. On December 31, we hired Booz-Allen and
Hamilton to be the consultant to the Memorandum of
Understanding partners, the MOU partners. Booz-Allen started
its work on January 6, 1997 and the task was such that we
expected a report at the end of March.
Because of the escalating crime, the defining event being
the murder of Officer Gibson, the MOU partners decided not to
wait until March. So, we encouraged Booz-Allen to bring forth
the recommendations that it had at that time, and this was mid-
February, 1997. On February 26, based on the consultants
recommendations, we implemented several changes in Metropolitan
Police operations.
What the consultant had found was many of the points that
you raised. Crime and the fear of crime are unacceptably high
within the District of Columbia, one of the highest if not the
highest in the country. Less than 10 percent of the officers
were working in scout cars. Two-thirds of the officers on the
force had made 10 or fewer arrests in a year, and half of all
officials made no arrests at all.
Salary levels were extraordinarily low when contrasted to
the surrounding jurisdictions, 14 percent below the average.
Not the high point, but the average salary paid in the
surrounding jurisdictions. The Police Department really was not
organized effectively to deliver the necessary police services
to the District of Columbia.
The MOU partners concluded that bold action was required
and must be taken immediately. We could not wait on further
studies and things of this nature. One of the main points was
empowering the Chief of Police. The Chief must have control
over promotions and demotions. He must have the ability to
remove non-performing officers and civilian employees. To that
end, on February 26, 1997 the Mayor delegated his personnel,
his purchasing, and his budgetary authority to the Office of
the Chief of Police.
The MOU partners also agreed that several crime fighting
strategies should be implemented immediately. These strategies
focused on the elimination of open air drug markets,
elimination of violent crimes, the violence and disorder
associated with some of the night clubs, and quality of life
crimes, such as urinating in public and drinking alcohol in
public, and traffic violations.
Gary Mather of Booz-Allen and Chief Soulsby will report on
the consultants baseline findings and some of the details of
what has occurred since the police began the initiatives.
However, I would like to report that the Chief has developed a
new mission statement for the Police Department which calls for
the Department to eliminate crime, fear of crime and general
disorder, while at the same time establishing respect and trust
for the police within the community.
Before our work began, I had personally gone to each of the
District commanders, all seven of them, and I asked what are
you trying to accomplish. I had seven different answers. The
Department needed a central core theme, or mission that
everyone could understand; that could be repeated and repeated
and repeated, and set that as the goal that we are trying to
accomplish. The Chief has done that.
He has established a new leadership team within the Police
Department. He has promoted 39 sergeants, 21 lieutenants and 6
captains. He has redeployed 400 sworn officers to deal with
crime and the fear of crime and formed a Police Department
internal team to work with Booz-Allen, the consultants to
develop a new policing model.
Already the Police Department has achieved several positive
results, including a significant increase in the morale
throughout the Department; an improvement in the community's
perception of the Police Department's ability to target crime,
the fear of crime, and general disorder; an increase in the
number of arrests which you alluded to, which have more than
doubled in the areas where we are targeting crime; and a
decrease in the number of homicides for the first quarter of
the calendar year, the lowest quarter reported in the last 10
years.
Mr. Chairman, I would be remiss if I did not take this
opportunity to discuss the importance of the pay raise for the
police officers. As I noted earlier in my testimony, police
officers are paid an average of 14 percent less than the
officers in the surrounding jurisdictions. Some officers in the
surrounding jurisdictions are paid as much as 22 percent more
than Metropolitan police officers.
And yet the police officers in the District, the Nation's
Capital, work in a difficult and dangerous environment, much
more difficult and dangerous than some of the surrounding
areas, placing their lives on the line every day. As we heard,
in the first 4 months we have had three officers murdered.
Chief Soulsby has proposed, and the MOU partners have
agreed to a 10 percent pay raise for the police officers. The
10 percent pay raise, costing a total of $8.8 million for the
second half of fiscal year 1997, would bring the officers
closer to the average pay of the surrounding jurisdictions.
This pay raise, which would be tied to performance standards
and work rule changes agreed to by the union, by the FOP, is
important to sustain improved performance within the
Department.
All MOU partners are carrying out responsibilities of their
own, though, to reduce crime and the fear of crime. We have all
undertaken certain tasks. The Authority has the task of not
only working with the consultants, and being the coordinator
for this MOU group, but the Mayor has delegated his power; the
Council has agreed to pass certain laws, for instance
considering bail reform, laws to fund the cost of closing
abandoned houses, and removing abandoned automobiles; the
Superior Court is streamlining their processing procedures; the
Corporation Counsel is training police; and the U.S. Attorney
is providing training and considering night papering which
requires prosecutors and judges to work at night.
Senator Brownback. If you could, I hate to do this to you,
Mr. Harlan, but if you could summarize the rest of your
comments, I would appreciate that.
Mr. Harlan. That is fine. These other gentlemen will focus
on what has happened. But let me also say that we traveled to
New York, Boston, and Chicago, I have personally, along with
some of the other MOU partners, and I am convinced that this
terrible crime crisis that we have right now can be fixed. It
is doable. Other cities have done it. We can do it.
I wrote an article that was published last Sunday in the
paper, that you alluded to, and I am absolutely convinced that
this can be done, and that we will do it with your support, and
with the support of the Congress, and of the White House on
various things that are needed.
So with that, I will close summarize and take your
questions when you are ready, sir.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Harlan.
I would like to now turn to the Booz-Allen and Hamilton
group, which did the investigation, appraisal, statistical
gathering regarding the Police Department and its functioning.
I do not know, Mr. Mather or Mr. Stewart, who would care to be
the principal presenter? I am just going to lump you both
together and still give you 5 minutes, so we are not going to
give you 10.
Mr. Stewart. I would yield my time to Mr. Mather.
Senator Brownback. You will yield your 5 minutes, and
together that is 5 minutes. If you could, just because both
Senator Lieberman and myself have been briefed on this study so
we have some good understanding on it. If you could, I think,
hit the high points on it, then we will go to some questions.
TESTIMONY OF GARY MATHER,\1\ SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BOOZ-ALLEN
and HAMILTON, INC., ACCOMPANIED BY JAMES ``CHIPS'' STEWART,
PRINCIPAL, BOOZ-ALLEN and HAMILTON
Mr. Mather. I am Gary Mather, Senior Vice President of
Booz-Allen and Hamilton. I have overall responsibility for our
firm's efforts to help transform the Metropolitan Police
Department of the District of Columbia. With me is Chips
Stewart, a former police executive and official of the
Department of Justice.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Mather appears in the Appendix on
page 61.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the Control Board recognized from the beginning
that reducing crime involved more than just the Police
Department and, as Steve talked about, the first step was the
formation of a Memorandum of Understanding. I think the
decision by the Board to include all these players was one of
the key reasons why the current effort has been successful.
Booz-Allen began work about 3 months ago, and let me just
spend a few minutes summarizing the highlights of our progress.
The initial phase of our project sought to do two things.
First, we wanted to understand, from the MOU stakeholders,
their objectives and points of view. Second, we wanted to
develop a baseline or profile of the Department as it existed
early this year.
I think what we found was that the greatest concern of the
stakeholders were the numbers of crimes committed in the
District versus the Department's relative effective in reacting
to crime. The purpose of the baseline survey was to delve into
the Department and gather detailed and extensive data on how it
was operating.
First, the Department's mission. We recommended that the
Department's mission should shift to concentrate on crime
prevention and reduction and, as important, reduction of the
fear of crime.
Relationship with the community. We recommended that MPD
needed to work proactively with the community in the
development and execution of crime control strategies, much as
many of the Nation's leading police departments are doing.
Crime analysis. We recommended that crime control
strategies must be a primary product of crime analysis at all
levels of the Department and headquarters to the District
level, and right down to the beat.
Patrol deployment. At the time of the baseline survey about
16 percent of the Department's sworn officers were available
for patrol. The remaining officers were being used for a range
of other activities, thereby being diverted from the core
police function of street patrol. We recommended a massive
reallocation of resources to triple the number of officers
focused on patrol beats.
Organization and staffing. We found many administrative
jobs being performed by officers that could just as easily be
outsourced or performed by civilians.
Information and technology, infrastructure, equipment and
facilities. We found that the Department had been
undercapitalized for some time. We found that much of an
officer's time is spent filling out reports. It takes 4 hours
to book in this city, versus 15 minutes in some other areas,
just because of information technology.
Facilities have not received attention in years. They are
in shambles and are a demoralizing factor for the officers.
Performance management. We found that performance review of
officers had not been done for 11 years and suggested that that
be done immediately.
The Department budget. The District of Columbia is our
Nation's capital. In one sense, the city belongs to the
citizens who live here, but many feel it also belongs to our
country. We feel a vital question surrounds how the budget for
the MPD is determined. Should it be determined by the economy
and tax base of the local community or by what it takes to make
the Nation's capital a safe place to live? We think it's the
latter.
Let me finish my testimony by reviewing a few key issues
that have recently received public attention.
First was the empowerment of the Chief's position, which
Steve talked about.
Next was building a team. The Department leadership team we
encountered on day one was dysfunctional, riddled with politics
and in basic disagreement on future directions for the
Department. We recommended that the Chief choose a team that
would share a common vision of the future and he did, and put
that team in place. There had to be a clear demonstration that
if the Department headed in the recommended direction it would,
in fact, make a difference.
Third, the Chief responded by assembling 400 officers,
deploying them to the most crime-ridden sections of each
district. As you will hear from the Chief, violent crime
dropped dramatically and quickly.
The fourth was compensation. Booz-Allen compared the
compensation of MPD officers with that of officers in
surrounding jurisdictions and the result was surprising, as
Steve talked about. The job of the MPD officer is probably the
most difficult in the region. The question arises, how can the
Department possibly attract the best talent necessary to combat
crime when potential officers can go to neighboring communities
and make more? We recently appealed to the Office of Management
and Budget for a $200 million infusion of capital to make up
for failures to invest in the Department for many years.
In discussing these deficiencies with Congressional
staffers, we have been told the District of Columbia has no
constituency when it comes to allocating money, except perhaps
at the White House. It is said that there is very little
mileage in spending money on the District, in contrast to back
home where the votes are.
The reply has to be someone has to take ownership, such as
this Subcommittee, of the importance of our Nation's capital
and how its condition affects the way the rest of the world
perceives the United States.
Let me close by noting where we are going. For the past 2
weeks, Booz-Allen has hosted a working session at our McLean
office for a team of 20 officers and civilians from the MPD. In
about 2 weeks, the Department will begin a massive shift of
resources to a deep focused operating model that will
concentrate on crime prevention as the Department's No. 1
priority. The number of street officers who work with the
community on patrol will grow quickly from about 570 to more
than 1,700.
This major redeployment comes at the right time. We are
about to enter the summer months when crime rates tend to be at
the highest.
It is also noted that the Department has been receptive to
our recommendations for change and Chief Soulsby is clearly
leading implementation. His dedication to this change has
captured the attention and support of his colleagues in the
ranks, as well as Booz-Allen.
I would just like to close by saying the Control Board has
made a delightful client. Thank you very much, Chips and I
would be glad to answer any questions.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much. I appreciate that a
great deal, and your timeliness, and it sounds encouraging with
some of these things taking place.
Mr. Soulsby is the Chief of Police. I know you have had a
very, very tough few months here. Please tell us what you are
planning for the future.
TESTIMONY OF LARRY D. SOULSBY,\1\ CHIEF OF POLICE, DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA POLICE DEPARTMENT
Mr. Soulsby. Good afternoon, Senator Brownback and
Subcommittee Members.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statementof Chief Soulsby appears in the Appendix
on page 79.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I appear before this Subcommittee at a time of great trauma
from the loss of our officers and a genuine promise of
transformation within the Metropolitan Police Department.
For many years the Department has not been structured to
productively combat the forces of crime and violence in the
Nation's capital, but I am pleased to testify that the
Department now is in initial stages of transformation that will
enable it to provide safe and secure neighborhoods throughout
the city. Crime rates have begun to fall and will fall further.
The transformation of the Metropolitan Police Department
depends on the contributions of many parties. You have heard
about the MOU partners, the key stakeholders who have set aside
and laid down basic groundworks and set aside their
personalities to help us achieve these goals. You have heard
from the Booz-Allen and Hamilton consultants who have diagnosed
many problems in the past and are helping us work our way
through these problems.
There is an initial role for Congress to play, I think,
also. As I requested, in testimony last week before the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee, the Department must have a 10
percent pay raise for the officers. There are many reasons I
can go into this, but quite frankly, we are changing the entire
dynamics of almost everyone in this Department. We have changed
a lot of things and we are asking them to do tremendously more,
and we need something to give back to them.
I believe that obtaining--I am trying to skip through here
to save time, sorry.
We are at a juncture where all factors seem to be in
alignment to propel us to the future are there. We think we can
achieve great success but we need help. We need help on many
areas. These factors include political will, citizen's demand
for crime control reduction, the prospects of financial
resources needed to obtain equipment and a pay raise are things
that we must have to keep us moving forward.
Let me describe briefly some of the transformation that we
are going through. The process of transformation began when we
signed the MOU partnership. The Department has always
demonstrated a willingness to put aside their turf
consideration, which in this city is a major accomplishment in
and of itself.
The most significant area of support provided the
Department has been the Mayor's empowerment of the Office of
Chief of Police. By delegating personnel, budget and
procurement authority to the Chief, the Mayor has enabled the
Chief to establish the foundation for transforming the
Department. This role is pivotal if we are going to improve for
the future. I have to have the ability to make key decisions,
to deploy resources, to hire, fire, promote personnel based on
demonstrated competence. Without the necessary authority and
autonomy, it would be impossible to transform the Department
and to ensure the citizens are achieving adequate police
service.
Second only to the Mayor's empowerment of the Chief is the
authority to remove the Department's sworn and civilian
employees who do not meet the high standards of integrity and
performance that we expect in the new Metropolitan Police
Department. For the first time, we will now have Department
employees accountable to the same degree as employees in
private industry. Employees who cannot or will not meet
established standards will be fired.
With my new authority, I have been able to appoint a new
leadership team which I think has everybody moving in the same
direction. For the first time, we are focused on crime and
violence in the city.
The new team is supported by a cadre of managers dedicated
to fulfilling the Department's new directive, reducing crime,
fear and disorder. They are also committed to empowering all
Department employees, down to the beat level, so that we can
accomplish things in a timely fashion. We are installing a new
organizational culture, one of professionalism. We have been
able to improve our administrative process and to remove old,
archaic ways of doing things.
We are asking the citizens to measure our performance. Our
performance will be based on reduction of crime and reduction
of fear of crime. We have high expectations of all our
officers. I have reviewed the Department's conduct and
disciplinary rules and procedures. We have set up numerous
committees to look into performance standards, to also set new
professionalism standards across the board. We will make
accountability the key word of the day, accountability for
integrity, performance, control of crime, accountability for
reducing crime and fear, accountability to citizens on all
issues.
As we moved forward in the last month, and I am skipping
through quickly, we have seen crime, specifically homicide, go
down 29 percent this year, robberies down 23 percent,
burglaries down 21 percent. But as we move through the
empowerment period, over the last 45 days, we have seen crime
go down 21 percent, homicides down 50 percent. We have seen the
productivity of the officers go up 100 percent in many areas,
almost every measurable area.
At the same time, the one thing that has gone down besides
crime is citizen complaints.
I think there is a sense of great hope in this city and a
great hope in this Department. We have a Department that is
committed to professionalism, committed to change, working with
Booz-Allen, working with the MOU partners, we say and have a
new sense of direction, a new sense of commitment from all of
the partners in law enforcement in this city and the criminal
justice system.
I think with some support from this Subcommittee and the
Hill, we will have successes in the future.
Senator Brownback. Good, I am glad to hear that encouraging
testimony. Next will be Chief Judge of the Superior Court of
the District of Columbia, the Hon. Eugene N. Hamilton. Judge
Hamilton, the floor is yours.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. EUGENE N. HAMILTON,\1\ CHIEF JUDGE,
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Judge Hamilton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Subcommittee, for the opportunity to be present and testify
this afternoon on fighting crime and violence in the District
of Columbia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Judge Hamilton with attachments
appears in the Appendix on page 89.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As we all know, crime and violence and the perception of it
at this time in the District of Columbia regrettably is at an
unprecedented high level. At the end of 1995, there were over
8,000 cases pending in the Superior Court's criminal division,
and by the end of 1996, there were over 9,000 cases pending in
the criminal division. This represents a 13 percent increase in
the Court's end of the year inventory of criminal cases. There
were 45,000 cases filed in 1995 compared with 47,309 cases
being filed in 1996.
Neither the figures for 1995 nor 1996 represent the true
extent of crime actually in the community, either in 1995 or
1996, and this is because the figures for criminal case filings
and criminal case inventories were severely depressed due to
reduced police action beginning in 1994.
The last year of non-depressed police activity was 1993 and
in that year there were over 58,000 criminal cases filed. In
the years 1994, 1995 and 1996, filings fell to 53,000, 45,000,
and 47,000 respectively, as shown in my figure 1, which has
been attached to my statement.
On March 1 of this year, the Metropolitan Police Department
commenced its enhanced enforcement activity in the District of
Columbia. On March 1, 1997 the Court received 118 cases from
arrests made, for the most part, on February 28, 1997. Then on
March 3, 1997, the Court received 252 cases from arrests made
on March 1 and 2, 1997. This trend of greatly increased arrests
has continued throughout March and April specifically. In March
and April the average daily arrestees processed in the Court
were 189 and 180 respectively, as shown in my figures 2 and 3,
which have also been attached to my statement.
If the trends of March and April continue, we expect to see
a total of over 64,000 criminal cases filed in the Superior
Court by the end of 1997. As I stated previously, the criminal
case filings hit a low in 1995 of 45,000.
The entire criminal justice system in the District of
Columbia is now functioning and the rates of crime are going
down substantially. The system, however, is very fragile at
this point. It will require a lot of attention by the criminal
justice leadership and commitment from the community and
government support agencies, including the Federal Control
Board, the Congress, the administration, the Mayor, and the
Council to sustain this present level of functioning by the
criminal justice system.
We must pay close attention to and support to make certain
that the criminal justice system continues to function in a
very effective manner, that it presently functions. The systems
that we must pay attention to, of course, are the courts. The
judicial and fiscal independence and the well-being of the
District of Columbia Courts must be provided for and maintained
because the hub which supports all of the spokes of the
criminal justice system is a Court system that depends on
independent, fair, objective, competent, efficient,
professional and well-trained judges and Court staff.
The District of Columbia Court system is such a Court
system for it has earned and enjoys respect not only in the
District of Columbia but also across the Nation and in many
foreign countries. Many of the judges are so respected that
they lecture as instructors in the leading law school programs
across the country and seminars and training courses that are
held throughout the country.
In addition, the Courts of the District of Columbia are
creators of many innovative judicial programs that seek to
treat offenders when this can be done efficiently and
consistently with reasonable safety to the community. The Court
has a state-of-the-art domestic violence unit which integrates
all domestic violence cases in the Superior Court except the
felony cases. The Court has a state-of-the-art urban services
program, which is a comprehensive rehabilitation program which
starts with a 30-day boot camp. The Court has a state-of-the-
art family and child services center which has intensive
services that are provided to children and families.
In short, the Court system must be supported because, in
short, it makes no sense for the Metropolitan Police Department
to make the new arrests, and the U.S. Attorney and the
Corporation Counsel to file new cases if the District of
Columbia Courts are not given the judicial independence and
financial support to efficiently and effectively manage and
enter dispositions in these cases resulting from those new
arrests.
As a MOU partner, I fully support the recommendations of
the partners, that the officers desperately deserve--an
immediately 10 percent pay adjustment. I urge that be done
immediately and, in my judgment, it is crucial to sustaining
the current law enforcement momentum on the streets. I say this
because we must all show these officers that when we say: ``We
appreciate your efforts,'' we really mean it. In other words,
at this point, these officers have been treated so shabbily we
need to reinforce and support our words with action.
As I stated initially, the Metropolitan Police Department,
as of March 1, 1997, is no longer dysfunctional but became a
very viable and effective law enforcement agency. This occurred
because the Chief of Police was empowered to command the
Department and make budgetary and personnel determinations for
the Department. This empowerment occurred due to the strong
recommendation to do so that was made to the Mayor by the MOU
partners, which was accepted and implemented by the Mayor.
The consensus to make this change came from the outstanding
scientific research done by Booz-Allen and Hamilton and the
leadership of the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility
and Management Assistance Authority. The results that have been
obtained teach us that the independence of the Police
Department and the authority of the Chief to command the
Department must be assured. The Chief must be assured of the
authority to make budgetary and personnel determinations, as
well as direct procurement of the Department.
In addition, the MOU partnership should be made permanent
and it should be given the authority to retain a research
resource such as Booz-Allen and Hamilton.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would request that my full
statement be made part of the record.
Senator Brownback. Without objection, it will be contained
in the record.
Thank you all very much for participating in this and I am
going to put the same 5-minute clock on both Senator Lieberman
and myself, so you can see how well we do up here.
I have to back up to how we opened this hearing. It is
beyond comprehension to me to think that we would have three
police officers stalked and hunted down in our Nation's capital
in a period of 4 months. That is just incredible to me. If the
Iranians had done this, we would be dropping bombs. And yet,
this has happened in our Nation's capital.
I hope we--and we have many of the major players involved
here--take a pledge that we will not tolerate this situation
continuing. We will tolerate zero assaults towards police
officers because they are us. They are the representation of
the people of a civilized nation. They are the representation,
just as our soldiers are in war. And we will tolerate zero
assaults towards police officers.
If a police officer is assaulted, there will be a price
paid. If one is killed, there will be a penalty extracted,
period, and it will be equivalent to the crime.
I hope we can all move forward on that. Mr. Soulsby, I hope
you can convey that to your police officers who must feel like
they are in a war zone and being targeted. How are they
reacting to what is taking place?
Mr. Soulsby. Well, first of all, I appreciate your comments
and certainly it causes them great concern. Many of them are
wondering should they remain in law enforcement. Many of their
spouses are pressuring them to leave. That is why it is so
important that we support them.
But they are professionals and they are going out there
every day. They are upset about it. And I think it has
everyone's attention. Any time an officer dies it is very
tragic for everyone involved. Every single police officer
hurts, and many members of the community.
But we have people in society, in this city and others,
that have no value for life, have no concern about getting
caught, do not care about going to jail. They do not care
whether they live or die. They should not be allowed to walk
the streets of any city.
Senator Brownback. We will back you up on that. I do not
know if the police officers have taken a position on the Brian
Gibson Act, on the death penalty towards killing police
officers. If you would like to articulate that, if you can?
Mr. Soulsby. The death penalty is such an individual thing
for most people, but I am totally in support of the act. I
think we need a death penalty in Washington, DC.
Senator Brownback. I think we need to renew our culture,
too, to think that people would actually do this.
Towards the Booz-Allen folks, you did a very good study.
How did we get to a point where, by your numbers, you are
saying 16 percent of the police officers were involved in the
beat activity and half of the badged police officers, if I have
that number correct, made zero arrests last year? How did we
get to that point and what instructiveness do we have on how do
we get out of that? Or maybe you feel like we are very much on
the way of getting out of that type of situation?
Mr. Mather. I think when you look at the numbers, you start
off with a fairly high number of people. And then as you go
attriting down, as they keep getting diverted to administrative
tasks and other kinds of things, specialty functions and
whatever, by the time you get down to patrol it is a 16 percent
number. And so there is--I think the Department, when we
started, was almost an administrative report-taking kind of
Department, and the officers were more reacting to crime than
really trying to prevent it.
So, I think that the massive shift that you will see is a
shift in the use of people, what it is that people do at any
given point in time.
I think the other thing, on the arrest rate, I do not know,
I think that there has been a real change of the paradigm under
the Chief's leadership since this all began. I mean, there is a
sense of momentum out there and there is a sense of
accountability and you are going to be held responsible for
what is happening. And that signal went out loud and strong,
particularly when the new team was formed and it sprinkled on
down in the organization.
I think that signal said, ``Hey, you have a job to do, and
you are going to do it. And if not, you are going to be done.''
I think that signal went out there. And as a consequence,
people stepped up to the challenge and the arrests started to
happen.
With the new paradigm that comes in and this massive shift
to resources, I think a lot of people will step up to the
challenge and some will not. But we think that the whole model
is being tipped on its ear. I mean, it is a whole different
scheme that is being put in place, and we think the impact on
crime will be substantial.
Chips, I do not know if you have any additional comments.
Mr. Stewart. Very quickly, you had a problem with structure
and you had a problem with strategy and you had a diffuse,
fractured mission. You had a bunch of people being hired and
put in small details to handle specific problems and act like
Band-aids. It did not take a comprehensive approach and needs
to be completely restructured. You cannot get there from here
unless you fundamentally change the vision of the Department,
the operating model of the Department, and you restructure it
to put the officers where the crime, the fear, and the disorder
are. And you have the other part of the system work.
Senator Brownback. Is that taking place in your estimation?
That restructuring?
Mr. Mather. That is where we are headed.
Senator Brownback. So you are satisfied that we are now
headed in the right direction, that we are on the right track?
Mr. Mather. The Chief did the first 400 and the impact of
that was pretty dramatic, in terms of the impact on the
numbers. We just spent 2 weeks with 20 officers that were
picked by the leadership team. They started off in lots of
different places, but 10 hours a day, 9 days, very intense. By
the time we were done this whole group, from lots of different
places in this Department, had coalesced around the idea that
their job was basically to reduce crime and the way to do that
was in the street. It was not at headquarters, it was not in
the District buildings, it was out there on patrol, interacting
with the community, proactive, crime strategies, executing
those strategies, figuring out what was going on on the beats,
and proactively dealing with those kinds of situations.
So my sense is that there is a real momentum that is
building here that I did not see when we first showed up. That
is why I think this raise ends up being so important because
these officers are looking for symbolic signs that the people
are behind them, that they are not out there by themselves
alone, that the Congress is behind them, that the citizens are
behind them, that they are not just going this alone.
I think the 10 percent raise would create a real slug of
not just the financial benefit of it, but just in terms of the
momentum and the movement and everything. It is just a critical
thing. We have to do it.
Senator Brownback. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just pick up briefly, Mr. Mather, on what you said
about the response of the officers in the MPD and looking for a
signal of the public's appreciation for what they are doing. A
pay raise is obviously part of that.
From your contact with the police officers, do you have any
indication about how they feel about the proposal to impose the
death penalty on those convicted of----
Mr. Mather. I do not have any data on that, except what I
have heard anecdotally.
Senator Lieberman. Mr. Harlan, let me thank you and
Chairman Brimmer and the Control Board for the leadership that
you have exercised here. This really was a crisis and you have
stepped in and brought in Booz-Allen and got great response
from the other signatories to this Memorandum of Understanding,
particularly the Chief and the officers, and you can begin to
see the turnaround. So I do not want to rush forward too soon
without thanking you for the leadership that you have shown.
Mr. Harlan. Thank you.
Senator Lieberman. In a way, my first question has been
anticipated. I was going to ask you, Chief, and Mr. Harlan--
well, two things. First off, can we draw a line, as far as you
can determine, between the actions that you have taken, the
first reform actions if you will, and this remarkable change in
arrests and statistics and citizen complaints?
I guess what I am asking is: This is just not accidental,
is it?
Mr. Soulsby. No. Actually, you could draw a line in the
hallways, you can see it on the faces of the officers from day
1. When this MOU was signed and the discussions in the first 24
or 48 hours, the whole attitude of officers changed. The judge
could tell you the attitude, he sees hundreds of officers in
Court every day and he could see the way they acted around the
building.
We had become a Department that was politicized from the
standpoint of people politicking constantly for promotions,
externally and internally. We had become a Department that was
almost, in some senses, like police welfare. Once you got the
job it was almost impossible to fire you. We had cases where we
had fired someone four times only to have administrative
appeals overturn it outside the Department.
If you have a Department like that, where you cannot fire
even the worst behavior, I am not talking about criminal
behavior but just worst behavior, then what happens after a
period of time is the minor violations are not enforced. There
is no sense of discipline.
You had officers that just would not work on the street and
you would have other officers who would stop working, stop
looking for things to do, because they would look around and
say why should I take all the chances? These other officers are
not doing anything.
Senator Lieberman. Right, bad morale begets worse morale as
it goes on.
Mr. Soulsby. Absolutely.
Senator Lieberman. Have you taken any action yet? Obviously
the whole thrust of this hearing is to give every possible
support we can to the police officers. But as you point out,
not every police officer is doing his or her job. Have you
taken action yet against any police officers who you feel are
not performing up to the standards?
Mr. Soulsby. So far the action has been taken at the
highest ranks. There has been five senior people removed. We
are working with the U.S. Attorneys Office in identifying
people that they have identified as potential problem people.
We are looking through it with Internal Affairs pulling every
case jacket for the last 5 to 7 years, looking at all prior
actions. We are deciding should this person stay on the
Department, or should this person.
So it is an orderly process but we intend to get it done
this spring.
Senator Lieberman. We have a lot of hope and a lot of
confidence in you, and to the extent that you do carry out that
mission it will make it that much easier--I hate to use that
word--to get the support for the Department generally from
Congress and for the individual police officers. I hope this 10
percent increase is not the last of it.
If there is a feeling that you are weeding out the people
who are not doing their jobs, and you have a force out there
that you are confident in, then I think you are going to find
Congress willing to continue to reward those people for the job
they are doing.
Mr. Soulsby. This Department, the leadership of this
Department, the entire force has been given an opportunity to
show its ability. Can it become a professional Department? Can
it once again be a leader? We are not going to waste this
chance.
Senator Lieberman. Good. Judge, you made a very important
point here, that we ought to all, in the sense of partnership,
think about how we can respond to which is that if--those
numbers you gave were dramatic. And if those numbers continue
there is obviously going to be a different kind of crisis in
the criminal justice system, both within the Courts and, I
presume, within the jails.
In a lot of jurisdictions, including my own in Connecticut,
we went through this a while back and what ends up happening is
that you are putting more people in the front door, and yet you
are letting more people out the back door because you do not
have room inside the jails. And you have the same kinds of
problems, if this is not done right.
I wonder if you could give us some idea of how you see this
and what, if anything, the District Government is doing or what
Congress can do to help you with this? Do we need more jails,
for instance?
Judge Hamilton. Well, we do need more detention facilities,
both for arrestees and people who have been committed on
sentences. I do not think we need as much prison space as one
would think offhand. I think the challenge now is to weed out
those people who can be supervised in the community with safety
to the community in a very cost efficient, effective way, so as
not to use jail space to house those people. That is what we
are--we have to focus on that, as well as being certain that
those people who cannot be supervised in the community are, in
fact, incarcerated. We have to pay close attention to both.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you all. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thanks, Senator.
Mr. Soulsby, have there been other attacks targeting
District police officers that we have not heard about?
Mr. Soulsby. Yes, daily. You have a lot of officers that
are assaulted frequently and at different events. But we have
had other cases where officers have been assaulted but not
killed, but if you go back a couple of years, an officer on H
Street in 1995. The officer and his partner were assisting a
motorist and the person could not speak. An individual comes up
behind him and shoots the officer in the back of the head.
We have had cases where an officer was walking a beat down
on Martin Luther King Avenue, about 2\1/2\ years ago, and he
stopped and talked to this young kid. And after the officer
walked on, the young kid decided he wanted the officer's
plastic gun. We had Glock guns that are made of space age
plastic, partially. So after the officer walks on, he shoots
the officer in the back of the head and the officer survived,
just to try to get his gun. He just wanted his gun.
I mean, that is absurd, but again, we have a lot of people
that commit crimes, commit murder, intimidate witnesses, that
commit murder in front of 30, 40, or 50 people, and people are
intimidated to the point that they do not--they have a total
lack of respect for the entire criminal justice system, I
think. So witnesses are afraid to come forward. In some cases,
we have had witnesses killed, and many witnesses who have been
intimidated.
There is a culture out there--I do not care whether I get
caught or not, I do not care whether I go to jail, I do not
expect to live to be 21 or 25 or 30. They just do what they
want, when they want. There is just a lack of sense of respect
for this society as a whole.
And the officers, being the ones that represent the
community, are the ones that have to deal with those people on
a day-to-day basis and it is very difficult.
Senator Brownback. You are using terminology I use to
describe a Third World country situation of a judicial system,
being intimidated in that nature.
Mr. Soulsby. What you have, and let me make it perfectly
clear, the vast majority of the citizenry in Washington are
decent, law-abiding citizens in every community. But there are
a few in a lot of these community areas, that are just
terrorizing these communities. And they have no sense of
society.
Senator Brownback. You were saying earlier that police
officers are being assaulted on a daily basis, did I hear that?
Mr. Soulsby. Yes, we have many assaults on police officers
cases that go to Court almost on a daily basis.
Senator Brownback. Maybe we ought to publicize and publish
that, so people can know just how difficult the duty is of what
police officers are having to do.
I understand and I hear you clearly about the need for the
salary increase, and I appreciate that. Are we providing the
tools that your officers need for their safety?
Mr. Soulsby. What we have, and really for the last 15 or 20
years the Department--as Booz-Allen has indicated--they have
sent together a package to the White House asking for almost
$200 million for equipment needs and infrastructure needs. We
have a lot of needs.
They have the tools necessary for basic safety, to
basically do their jobs. But most area Departments have much
better equipment than we do. They have more modernized
equipment.
Senator Brownback. If you could be more specific?
Mr. Soulsby. It is a combination of--for instance, we have
an old radio system and we are in the process of trying to get
a new radio system. We finally have the money, in large part
thanks to Congress and Senator Hatch, where we can do a lot of
technology pieces. But we need equipment for our cars.
For instance, just making sure that we have sufficient
fingerprint equipment, sufficient equipment to process crime
scenes across the board. A lot of things that you would have in
a police car in many other jurisdictions we do not have. We
have to lend them back and forth.
So we provide basic equipment, but we have a long way to
go. And I would certainly be very pleased to submit to you a
list of our needs.
Senator Brownback. I would appreciate you doing that, of
saying if we are going to ask this police force to put their
neck out on the line every day to defend us, and we are asking
them to step up the pace because we do not feel safe and we do
not think you are either, then what equipment do you need to do
it? So that we can know with clarity that we are not going to
send our troops into the field without them being sufficiently
armed.
Mr. Soulsby. I will submit to you a request or a list of
those needs this week, sir.
Senator Brownback. I will look forward to being able to
have that. Just let me say, as a closing statement for myself,
I appreciate what all of you are doing and each piece of the
puzzle that you operate. Particularly, Mr. Soulsby, your
officers are out there on the front line and I am looking
forward to the additional ones hitting the streets.
I am encouraged about the optimism that each of you state
towards this and about some of the preliminary results. I am
hopeful that that can continue. We have to do much better for
your officers. We have to do much better for this community.
It sounds like to me, from each of you, you are saying we
can do much better. We clearly can do much better. Other major
metropolitan areas have done it. You have studied those models
and you are going along those models and you are moving on that
path.
We will look forward to having you back sometime, I would
hope later this year, to assess progress as we move along this
issue. And I hope and pray you do not have another headline
where we have officers killed in the District, hunted down.
Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, two quick
questions. Chief, let me just draw you out for a minute on
something you said in your opening statement. Obviously what
you are in the process of now is leading change and it is a
natural human reaction to resist change. You have been given
more authority, more independence. Are you getting cooperation
from the city administration, the Mayor's office, and from the
police that are serving under you?
Mr. Soulsby. We are getting basic cooperation from the city
and many of the MOU partners have been outstanding. But the
officers, the men and women of the Police Department, for the
most part are ecstatic about the change. We cannot make it
happen fast enough. I brought in most of the--certainly, all of
the senior officials, all of the lieutenants and above in the
Department, a lot of the sergeants, and talked about--we sent
video tape statements out to all of the officers. I have sent
people, senior managers, to every roll call.
One of the questions we asked all of them, no matter what
your rank, do you know people of your rank in this room that
should not be here? And almost every officer would raise their
hand, or every sergeant or every lieutenant. They are
frustrated. In large part, they have been stagnant by the fact
of why should I do anything if these other individuals do not
and nothing ever happens to them?
The gloves have come off now, across the board. And that is
why I told you within 24 or 48 hours, you could see a
difference. People, instead of frowning walking the hallways,
were smiling and actually enjoying their jobs.
When we put this new enforcement effort out in these areas,
the seven areas of the city, the 400 officers, you had officers
going in and talking about I have not been out here for 6 or 7
years doing this. I am absolutely enjoying it. We have had
officers who have gone to Court and made cases that have not
been in Court for 10 years.
The dynamics of this whole Department has changed, is
changing. We have a long way to go but there is a great sense
of hope.
Senator Lieberman. That is great. There is something to be
said for a culture in an organization, or an attitude in an
organization, and it sounds to me like you have changed it.
A final question, Mr. Mather, in response to what you have
done, obviously, there are some very significant and hopeful
changes going on. From your perspective, what do we have to do
to keep this going? What are the key indicators here of
continued progress in law enforcement in the District?
Mr. Mather. I think what you said earlier is organizational
change is a fragile thing and I think momentum is very
important. I think when we made the recommendation to the
Control Board on the empowerment of the Chief, it was with some
trepidation because we did not know how it would turn out.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Mather. I think we all look back now and think that we
are very fortunate that the Chief has stepped up to it the way
he has and has delivered so well. I mean, I think we all felt
that if that did not happen, it would have set back the whole
thing a ways. So I think we should all be grateful that we have
a Chief that is really doing this. I think he has a team behind
him and his momentum and so on.
I guess my feeling is that we are on the right course. I
think the Department is committed to this business of crime
prevention. I think when we first got started, we said, you
guys are talking about arrests and 911 response time and the
rest of the world is talking about body count.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Mather. People are thinking about the number of crimes
committed, not what your response is to crimes committed. So
crime prevention, if you really want to feel safe in this city,
has got to be the critical thing that is focused on and I think
it takes time for a Department to come around and embrace that
idea, and that Department has.
This group of 20 that has been out there, we have asked
them to be evangelists, to go out, almost like you drop a stone
in a pond and it starts to sprinkle out and, slowly but surely,
this whole thing starts to take.
So, I think during this transformation process, it has to
take. It has to have a life of its own and it has to have
perpetuation at the grassroots level, and as you keep pushing
this thing to the grassroots level, people are now doing
things, not because they were told to from on high. They are
doing it because they have embraced the new idea and they are
doing what they need to do.
I have seen a lot of these transformations. I have been
involved with a lot of them in the corporate world and this one
has the feel of something that is really going to happen, and I
think the only thing we have to do to make that the case is to
stay behind it and keep this momentum going, and I think it is
going to be--every so often, you get all the things line up.
Part of it is just luck and part of it is hard work and part of
it is just the way it turned out.
But some very good things are happening and I think it is
fundamental and I think it is structural and all we need to do
is keep this momentum going and I think we will have a
different Department and a different city.
Senator Lieberman. Great. I hope we in the Senate and
Congress generally can do our part to support that change.
Thank you all very much.
Senator Brownback. Thank you all very much. We appreciate
it.
Our next panel will be Dr. Robert Moffit, the Deputy
Director for Domestic Policy Studies, the Heritage Foundation,
and C. Stephen Wallis, Washington, D.C. Area School
Administrator.
We are going to do with this next panel just like we did
the last one. It will be a 5-minute presentation, gentlemen, if
you can. Sorry to keep you limited so tight, but we have a lot
of people that want to help us out with a tough problem here,
so we will try to keep it to 5 minutes, as well, if you can.
We will take the full statement in the record, so if you
can summarize that, that would be appreciated.
TESTIMONY OF ROBERT MOFFIT,\1\ DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR DOMESTIC
POLICY STUDIES, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. Moffit. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Moffit appears in the Appendix on
page 125.
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My name is Robert Moffit and I am the Deputy Director of
Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. I supervise
a staff of analysts in the areas of health, education, welfare,
and urban policy, including urban crime.
Mr. Chairman, at the outset, words cannot express the honor
that I feel at having the opportunity to testify before this
Subcommittee of the Senate on this issue. The reason is that
for me, personally, the problem of the police and the problem
of crime is not at all abstract. I come from a family of
Philadelphia police officers. My father was a detective in the
Philadelphia Police Department, with 25 years of service. I
feel deeply about the welfare of the police and their struggle
with the problem of crime.
I should also point out, before I get into the depth of my
testimony here, that for my colleagues at The Heritage
Foundation, crime is not an abstract policy question. Over the
past 36 months, Heritage staff have been victimized by violent
crime on more occasions than we care to count. So our interest
in the success of the Police Department is not an object of
metaphysical interest.
In our own way, my colleagues at the Foundation have
encouraged the serious discussion of the future of the
Metropolitan Police Department. Back in October of 1996, The
Heritage Foundation sponsored a public policy lecture by
William J. Bratton, who was the former Police Commissioner of
the City of New York on the topic, ``If New York City can
reduce violent crime, why can't D.C.?''
You all know the reason. Over the past 4 years, New York
City has witnessed an overall reduction in crime by 50 percent.
During Bratton's 27-month tenure alone, New York City saw a 36
percent reduction in serious crime, including a 44 percent drop
in auto theft and a 45 percent drop in murder.
The purpose of the Heritage initiative was to determine
how, precisely, this was accomplished and what policy makers
here in Washington, locally and nationally, could learn from
the New York City's stunning success.
Larry Soulsby, the Chief, was a panelist. He was invited to
discuss ways that he could improve the Department at the time.
Eric Holder was also invited, as were representatives of the
local neighborhood associations. I am proud to report it was a
positive, encouraging, and very productive meeting.
I am going to confine my remarks this afternoon to the
question of the police and how public officials can help the
police. I noticed at the top of this conversation, we were
talking about the tough job facing the police. It seems to me
and my colleagues at The Heritage Foundation that perhaps the
basic problem is that most of us simply do not think about the
police enough. More precisely, we do not give the police enough
thought about what kind of job they do.
That has certainly been true in the District of Columbia.
The Memorandum of Understanding describes a Metropolitan Police
Department plagued by deep cynicism, ``low morale for
management, a lack of clear vision and common purpose,'' but it
then further notes, ``that many of these conditions existed for
the last 10 years.'' From the standpoint of public policy,
ignoring the police can be catastrophic.
The job that Congress and local officials have to undertake
first is to rethink the job of the police officer. It is our
first task. We have to ask ourselves a fundamental question:
What public official exercises more direct, concrete, and
immediate authority over every citizen of the United States,
regardless of their class or condition, than a police officer?
If you think about it, the authority of the police officer
is awesome. There is nothing else like it. He can stop you and
he can question you under a given set of circumstances. He can
arrest you and take away your personal liberty. And, indeed,
under another set of circumstances, he can even deprive you of
your life.
He is bound by rules and regulations, as is every other
public official, but as James Q. Wilson and others observed,
these rules tell him what he cannot do. They tell him nothing
about what he can or should do. There is a reason for this, and
it is inherent in the job of the police officer as a
profession.
The police are, as Wilson and others have noted, the
supreme paradox of personnel management. In virtually every
other public or private institution you can imagine, the
discretion of an official, what he can do under a broad charter
of responsibility increases as one goes up the hierarchy. At
the very top of the pyramid, whether it is running Microsoft
Corporation or the Department of Health and Human Services, the
discretion of your top officer is enormous.
The police are the exception to this otherwise iron rule of
management. Indeed, in the case of the police, the discretion
in the exercise of authority increases as one goes down the
hierarchy. So in the case of the police, you have a unique role
reversal that exists nowhere else in either public or private
management. The police are operationally independent, they
operate alone, they have to depend primarily on their own
judgment, weighing the circumstances in every case, and they
operate without direct supervision.
In effect, they are authorized to make split-second
decisions in matters of life and death within the confines of
the law and the Constitution. This is something that is beyond
the experience of most Members of the Senate or the House or
even the Supreme Court. This kind of discretionary authority is
for most of us, simply beyond imagination. Public officials
should think about that. They should think about it a lot. They
should think about what kind of person they want in that kind
of a job.
We have to also rethink the standards for police personnel.
The problem of the police is ultimately a problem of personnel
management. Specifically, it is a matter of adopting
appropriate standards in recruiting and hiring and firing and
promoting and deploying police officers. As my colleague at The
Heritage Foundation, Bill Bennett, once remarked, no personnel
decision in government is more important than the hiring of a
police officer. If you make a mistake in hiring a police
officer, the consequences can be catastrophic.
We also have to rethink the role of the police in
combatting and preventing crime. It looks like we are on the
way to doing that. I am very grateful to see that the D.C.
Police Department and the Booz-Allen team and the signatories
to the Memorandum of Understanding are doing precisely that.
We can do a lot of other things. I have specified in my
testimony 10 different items. It has a central theme: Getting
serious about personnel investigations, serious about
recruiting standards, and at the same time, giving the police
the recognition they deserve.
One thing I want to close with, Mr. Chairman. Beyond the
pay raises, one thing that we may want to think about is to
have the President, the leaders of Congress, the
representatives of the business community and the labor
community, the press corps, once a year in this city honor
outstanding police officers. It would go a long way to boosting
the morale of the police, to let them know that the highest
officials of this country are behind them 100 percent.
Thank you. That ends my initial statement.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Dr. Moffit. I
appreciate that.
Mr. C. Stephen Wallis, Washington, D.C. Area School
Administrator, thank you for joining us.
TESTIMONY OF C. STEPHEN WALLIS,\1\ WASHINGTON, D.C. AREA SCHOOL
ADMINISTRATOR
Mr. Wallis. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here today, Senator Lieberman.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wallis appears in the Appendix on
page 149.
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My focus over the last several years has been on the
pivotal role that school environments play when we examine
American public schools, and it seems to me that a discussion
of crime, adult and juvenile, in any of America's communities
would be rather incomplete without an equal examination of the
community's schools.
Frankly, too many of America's public school teachers
perform under combat conditions, Senators. Worse, teachers too
often have little support from local boards of education or
school administrators, and yet despite the barrage of
disrespectful behavior on the part of unruly students and the
lack of action from school authorities, these teachers daily
make heroic efforts to educate this country's youth.
State and local legislators can take a strong hand in
reforming public education through school choice, charter
schools, and other measures designed to increase
accountability. Today, I want to lay out before you how it is
that legislators can also play a vital role by restoring
discipline and, frankly, civility and a traditional level of
popular literacy.
The District of Columbia is no exception in this regard,
sadly played out with frightening regularity in too many of its
schools, most recently at Ballou regarding the stabbings just
within the last day or two and with the Winston Elementary sex
incidents within the last 2 weeks.
And while urban, suburban, and rural school administrators
continue to fret for more funds, and money is awfully
important, I humbly contend that money is the wrong focus. The
most pivotal reason for this country's lackluster educational
performance continues to revolve around the utter lack of
civility in our schools, and, worse, it is tolerated on a daily
basis.
We can no longer assert the need to set rigorous standards
and then ignore the very reason why this is unachievable. The
number of classroom disruptions interfering with teaching and
the number of threats and injuries to teachers and students
grow exponentially, and it appears to me that many of the
schools have lost their sense of culture, of just what is
important for students completing their K-12 public school
education.
A school's success is due, in major part, to its
philosophical foundation, its norms and its beliefs, academic
and social. So if the climate exudes achievement for everyone
and if the school emphasizes educational goals and what I call
the 4 Rs, including respect, then the grounds themselves, the
building itself is thought of as a place for learning. It is of
paramount importance, and then this becomes infectious.
Teachers will also project to all students that they can and
are expected to achieve.
But that is not the case that we have in most of our
schools, gentlemen. When a school system is fraught with
disruption and rampant disrespectful behavior and where
policies governing behavior are weak or poorly written, then
the mission is at best amorphous and allows for an erosion of
sensible expectations. In effect, the school's culture is
subverted by a kind of silent chaos.
You have to be in a public school, in many of them, to see
the repeated sundry of ill behaviors, from disrespectful
comments to peers and adults, the pushing, the fighting, the
rudeness, the open alcohol and drug activity in school
corridors, lateness to class, the truancy, being unprepared,
foolish disregard for policies, sleeping in class, fondling one
another, wearing clothes emblazoned with drug, gang, and often
demeaning expressions to one or another's gender, ad nauseam,
often with no correction and no consequences.
I have stated repeatedly that this has a negative
cumulative effect. It is as though we are waiting for
youngsters to run to the edge of the cliff before they decide
that leaping off the edge, in this case, a knife cutting in a
cafeteria or a violent assault or a gun incident, is really
inappropriate. It is very similar to the broken window
syndrome.
As a Nation, we can be appalled, but we ought not be
surprised at the level of violence being played out in our
streets. It is being played out in our schools, elementary,
middle, and high. Youngsters continue to graduate from the
schools with barely a tenuous grasp of right and wrong. They
will continue to play the system, and sadly, too frequently, be
in and out of the justice system and still many what I call
educrats and others still do not get it.
An effective school system, one that focuses on stressing
achievement, wholesome involvement in the total school program,
emphasizing respect and integrity, emphasizing also a shared
parent partnership, cannot be sustained under conditions where
there are endless excuses for intractable defiant behavior and
no moral or ethical consequences.
There are some things I think legislators can help us do.
First of all, there are four principles that must characterize
certain actions. Disruptive and violent behavior receives zero
tolerance. Discipline be even-handed with due process,
regardless of ethnicity, gender, or socio-economic background.
An acknowledgement that substantive discipline is a kindness
that contributes to personal growth and freedom. And last,
there must be a return to the appropriate mission of schools,
refocusing efforts on teaching youngsters to read, for God's
sakes, to compute, to write, to speak, and to think critically.
We can encourage involvement by use of parent contracts. I
would ask legislators to encourage the Washington, D.C. school
system to establish community service for those students on
suspension, gaining an understanding of compassion, respect,
and humility and responsibility that might be learned and might
be gained by helping someone in a nursing home, tutoring
another youngster, cleaning up a park; establishing school
time-out rooms with a para-professional and community agency
staff to work with disruptors, if only temporarily,
establishing transitional schools for the habitually disruptive
student; establishing afternoon auxiliary centers with
supervised open classrooms and gymnasiums after the regular
school day for those students wishing to take in academic
assistance or participation in cultural activities; insisting
that school officials review and rewrite, if necessary, student
discipline codes; making character education a part of the
curriculum; hiring retired military staff as a resource of
talent and training; ensuring that adequate security personnel
are in the schools and on school grounds; ensuring that high
schools employ reading specialists; and the last two, cutting
off funds, if you will, to those districts or those schools
tolerating disruption; and examining school staffing and
assigning staff to our schools with community-specific at-risk
needs and really departing from the rigid formula that assigns
staff on the basis of student numbers.
I would add that I think the more students think and learn,
the more active they will become in the instruction. And when
respect, self-discipline, and character are rewarded, student
motivation to learn will increase, Senators.
I will tell you that I think there is a continuing active
role for legislators, for employers and communities, for that
matter, in the effort to move our children to world class
standards, but it has to be recognized first and foremost that
disrespectful behavior and disruption steals learning and
smothers instruction, and in the process, steals the future
from far too many students.
Last, I would like to say that we might begin improving the
conditions under which too many American public school teachers
work and teach if the end result is improving the education of
our country's children. I would thank you all very much for the
time and effort that you give to the District's children and
their parents and their teachers.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, and thank you for your work
on the front lines in the schools and with the children.
With three police officers being, we have even heard the
term here today, assassinated in the District in the first 4
months, does any of that surprise you, being a school
administrator and some of the comments that you've made about
lack of respect in the school system, of kids growing up and
being willing to engage even in the mental processes of
thinking about actually going out and killing a police officer?
Does any of that surprise you?
Mr. Wallis. It does not, Chairman Brownback. Recently,
talking in San Antonio and Detroit, Michigan, I have said
nationally that far too many of the criminal element, frankly,
have been cultivated in our public schools. They at one time
were in our public schools.
And the fact of the matter is that an atmosphere that is
rife with disruption simply cannot produce kids who know
something about self-respect and integrity and regard for the
sanctity of life. I am not surprised at all. I think we are
reaping 25 to 30 years of what we have sown.
Senator Brownback. And you have stated in your testimony,
and I appreciate that, some of the things you think that we can
do here to try to turn that tide. I know it is both Senator
Lieberman's and my hope that we have reached the bottom of the
barrel and we are going to start turning this around, but we
have a lot of years to go.
Mr. Wallis. I am sure we do, Chairman, but I would humbly
insist that before legislative bodies appropriate a single
dime, that those vested with the responsibility to educate our
youngsters ensure that these schools are safe, that they have,
in each one, an atmosphere that is conducive and contributive
to academic study consistently and extracurricular involvement.
Senator Brownback. Is that happening now in the District of
Columbia schools? We now have the Control Board involved. There
has been a lot of hope and promise being put forward there. Is
it happening now in the District of Columbia?
Mr. Wallis. Generally speaking, it is not, Senator, which
is why you have had occur just within the last couple weeks
some of the problems that we have had in the schools. It
certainly is nothing indigenous to Washington, D.C. This is
pervasive and we all know the violence statistics. But I would
contend that the disruptive and disrespectful behavior that we
see is far more pervasive than the violence.
Senator Brownback. You cite charter schools, and choice.
What else can be done within the school system today to try to
reinstill some of that respect and reduce the disrespectful
activity?
Mr. Wallis. I think it is going to take a legislative body,
such as this, and the community working towards the effort of
really renewing schools and doing it in a substantive fashion,
because we can talk about increasing test scores, we can talk
about incorporating technology in different schools, but the
fact is that we need to emphasize very, very substantively the
importance of a shared partnership with the community, and
frankly, as I mentioned earlier, the complete sanctity of the
schools, where schools are places where the parameters are such
where kids must achieve.
It takes dynamic leadership. The faculty have to know how
much they are appreciated and kids have to know that each and
every one of them can succeed, and it is true, but it is
utterly impossible when schools are run as they are today. It
is fundamentally flawed to think that we can talk about these
kinds of things regarding achievement and then stand by and
allow the kind of behavior that steals dignity and smothers
instruction every day.
Senator Brownback. So set standards and absolutely adhere
to those?
Mr. Wallis. I think so. I believe in my heart, Senator
Brownback, I think we need to declare a war on incivility and
it takes setting standards. There are too many constituencies
who have supported me on that. I have talked to minority youth.
I have talked to various schools, their faculties, and I am
telling you, across the Nation, kids are hungering for this.
They have indicated in recent surveys that they would feel a
lot better about themselves, they would learn a great deal more
if they just felt safer.
So, if you are talking about crime in any one community,
you have got to discuss the schools and they have to be
examined and they have to be run, I would humbly suggest, as I
am outlining today.
Senator Brownback. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
You both gave excellent testimony, both in terms of the
attitude, the values that you bring to it, which I appreciate a
lot, and the specific recommendations that you have made.
If I may, not to take too much time, but this whole notion
of incivility is so critical, and it has been an interest that
I have shared with the Chairman, to examine or to do something
about the effect that the entertainment culture--television,
music, movies--have on kids with the decline of some of the
other sources of authority, traditional civility.
Take a look at television. Part of what is wrong with the
trash talk TV shows is not just the dominance of the sexually
perverse behavior that is described, but it is the way the
discussion goes on. It is yelling at each other, it is pushing
each other around.
Take a look at some of the TV shows, some of them that seem
pretty funny. You could take a look at ``The Simpsons'' and, in
one light, it is sort of funny, or ``Married With Children,''
which is now going off the air. But what is involved in both of
those shows is a profound lack of civility and respect for
authority, parents, for instance. So we all pay the price for
this. I apologize for the sermon on your time, but----
Mr. Wallis. You are preaching to the choir.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you.
One of the other things you have said, just in response to
the Chairman and just to punctuate it, we are accustomed to
having people say that prisons are schools of crime, that often
people go in a prison, come out more schooled in crime. It is
an awful thought, but it is true in too many schools in our
country today, that schools can also be breeding grounds for
criminal behavior and we have to stop that.
Let me ask a specific question. I missed asking this both
last week or 2 weeks ago when the school folks were in and
today. Are the D.C. police responsible for security in the
public schools or is there a separate school security force?
Mr. Wallis. I am not absolutely sure of that, Senator. I
know some schools have hired separate security, private
security, and I know some Washington, D.C. officers have
patrolled some of the schools. I am not sure if there is an
actual formal contract for that.
Senator Lieberman. OK. We can pursue that. I just am
curious as to whether you have seen a reduction in crime within
the schools in the period of time that we have heard described
in the previous panel, by the Chief and others in which this
new approach is going into effect. We are seeing more arrests,
a drop in serious crimes. Have you seen any change within the
schools that you are involved in?
Mr. Wallis. I am sorry to say I have not. No, sir.
Senator Lieberman. Dr. Moffit, thanks for your testimony
and the specificity of your suggestions. I am very interested
to just ask you to talk a little bit about No. 4 of your 10
items, which is to anchor the police in the community.
Mr. Moffit. Right.
Senator Lieberman. I am real interested in what you said
about going beyond putting the cop on the beat, community
policing, but have some other ideas, and this really goes to
the heart of what I was saying at the outset, which is when I
grew up, not only did we have respect for the cop, but he was
our friend, if you will.
Mr. Moffit. Right.
Senator Lieberman. I am afraid there was a whole generation
or maybe more than one that came along where the cop was almost
like the invading army and an outsider in a car, almost like a
tank. You never saw him, but whatever he was, he was not on our
side. Talk a little bit about that.
Mr. Moffit. I would like to talk a little bit about that. I
mean, there are a lot of reasons why. Some of them are
technical. Some of them are social.
But when you were growing up, and, frankly, when I was
growing up, in my young life, I spent a fair amount of time in
Center City, Philadelphia. The neighborhood policeman was an
institution. The key thing was that the neighborhood policeman,
the neighborhood cop, knew the people in the neighborhood, and
even better, all the people in the neighborhood knew the
neighborhood cop.
This had a profound effect on law enforcement. Because what
it meant was that any time a crime was committed, the
neighborhood policeman had an immediate access, in effect, to
an informal intelligence service.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Moffit. We lost that. My view is that we have got to
get back to that and there are a number of ways of doing it. I
mentioned Charleston, South Carolina, in my testimony, and
Portland, Oregon, where the local officials are trying to get
the policemen to become members of the community that they
serve. One way to do that is housing vouchers or low-interest
loans, literally giving the police the opportunity--it is a
voluntary program--to go back into the communities they patrol
and become part of the community.
The key value of that, once again, is that the people in
the community then have a stake in that policeman and that
policeman has a stake in the community. It is an excellent
idea. I do not think we ought to order the police to do this,
but I think we ought to make it an option, and in Washington,
D.C., this is something we may want to consider or pursue.
Senator Lieberman. And this is being used in some
communities, like Charleston, with some positive effect?
Mr. Moffit. Yes. That is right.
Senator Lieberman. I appreciate that. You make an
interesting point, actually, about the way in which the old cop
on the beat had his built-in intelligence network.
Mr. Moffit. Immediately.
Senator Lieberman [presiding]. Most police I talk to will
tell me, at home, certainly, in Connecticut, that the way that
most crimes are solved is by getting cooperation, today, often
paid for with cash, which is an acceptable form of law
enforcement, but it is a cost that law enforcement did not have
in the old days because the cop knew everybody in the
neighborhood and was already able to break through and get
information.
I thank you both very much. The Chairman has had to step
out, but he has asked me to move on and call the next panel. We
appreciate very much your testimony and your written testimony,
and it will be helpful to the Subcommittee as we go forward.
Thanks very much.
Mr. Moffit. Thank you, Senator.
Mr. Wallis. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Lieberman. Stay strong.
The final panel is the Hon. Carol Schwartz, District of
Columbia City Council, and Dr. H. Beecher Hicks, Jr., Senior
Minister of the Metropolitan Baptist Church. Thanks to both of
you for your patience and for your willingness to be here. We
are going to run the clock again at the 5 minutes, I guess.
Councilwoman Schwartz, you are first. It is good to see you
again.
TESTIMONY OF CAROL SCHWARTZ,\1\ DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CITY
COUNCIL MEMBER
Ms. Schwartz. Thank you, Senator. It is nice to see you, as
well.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Schwartz appears in the Appendix
on page 153.
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I would like to thank the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight
of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of
Columbia for the opportunity to testify today concerning
strategies for fighting crime and violence in the District of
Columbia. I speak to you today as an elected at-large member of
the Council of the District of Columbia. Although the Council
is doing much in the area of fighting crime and violence, and I
hope you will ask me some questions about that at the end of my
testimony so I can talk about it, I am going to concentrate my
remarks on the death penalty as it relates to the killing of
law enforcement officers.
First, let me begin by stating that I believe that local
criminal law should be an area in which local communities ought
to have the right to make their own decisions. My colleagues on
the Council and I wholeheartedly agree on this issue and have
not yet signed onto the President's plan for the District
because of our concerns in this area.
The 38 States that have enacted death penalties into the
criminal law have done so based upon local considerations and
circumstances. There are 12 States, like the District of
Columbia, who have not enacted a death penalty statute. Yet the
U.S. Congress has not intervened to impose death penalty
legislation in any of those States.
I think it is safe to say that such an intrusion into the
local affairs of those 12 States would be unthinkable to the
citizens of those States and to the Members of Congress who
represent them. Should we not all believe, as President Abraham
Lincoln did, that ``those who deny freedom to others deserve it
not for themselves.''
Members of the Subcommittee, I respectfully ask you to
consider that the American citizens who are my constituents in
the District of Columbia are like your constituents. All of our
constituents possess the rights as citizens of a democratic
society to determine their own local government affairs
locally. Just because the Congress has the constitutional
authority to enact legislation for the District does not mean
they must exercise it.
While I personally support the death penalty, I believe
that the District of Columbia should be free not to enact such
a law if that is the will of the people. That is the essence of
a democracy. The author, Eric Hoffer, once said that ``the
basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do
than in what we are free not to do.'' I agree with this
statement.
I recently returned from Croatia, where I was privileged to
be a member of the United States delegation that observed the
elections there. It is a powerful experience to witness a
people determining their destiny through the vote. The U.S.
Government supports democracy in Croatia and throughout the
world. The U.S. support for democracy worldwide contrasts
sharply with how the District of Columbia is routinely treated
by its own Federal Government.
This discussion also reminds me of news commentator Edward
R. Murrow's observation that ``we cannot defend freedom abroad
by deserting it at home.''
I support the death penalty for those who are convicted of
murdering law enforcement officers. I firmly believe that our
local law enforcement officers in the District of Columbia
should have the same protections as other law enforcement
officers who operate in the District, such as the Capitol
Police, Park Police, Uniformed Senate Service, the Secret
Service, and others.
The death penalty bill that the Mayor and I announced on
April 21, 1997, is D.C. Bill 12-204, the Law Enforcement
Officer Protection Amendment Act of 1997. That bill would
provide for the death penalty in cases of murder of D.C. law
enforcement officers. I support D.C. Bill 12-204 because I
believe that it is critically important for the people of the
District of Columbia to have an opportunity that is locally
initiated to weigh in through the legislative process on this
serious and highly complex criminal penalty.
As you may recall, District voters soundly rejected a 1992
Congressionally mandated initiative on the death penalty by a
margin of 2 to 1. I know for a fact that many of the no votes
were to Congressional interference rather than to the death
penalty.
The bill recently proposed by the Mayor and myself will
permit District of Columbia citizens to express their views on
the death penalty for the murder of law enforcement officers
without being required this time to simultaneously register
their views on the issue of Congressional interference in
District affairs, but only if Senator Hutchison withdraws her
bill, you deep-six it, or you vote it down.
I believe that the will of the people of the District of
Columbia should prevail on this issue, whatever that may mean
for the Mayor's and my bill. I am confident that the Congress
of these democratic United States will respect the democratic
rights of the over half a million American citizens who make
their homes and dutifully pay their Federal income taxes here
in the District of Columbia. Thank you.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Ms. Schwartz. We will have
some questions afterward.
Dr. Hicks, we are honored to have you here and look forward
to your testimony now.
TESTIMONY OF REVEREND H. BEECHER HICKS, JR.,\1\ SENIOR
MINISTER, METROPOLITAN BAPTIST CHURCH
Rev. Hicks. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. I am H. Beecher
Hicks, Jr., Senior Minister of Metropolitan Baptist Church in
the District.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Rev. Hicks, Jr. appears in the
Appendix on page 156.
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Ordinarily, I would say that I am happy to testify before
the Senate Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring,
and the District of Columbia Subcommittee, but I am not. I am
truly saddened by the events which make this testimony
necessary, and at the same time, I am unalterably opposed to S.
294 for a number of reasons which will shortly be apparent.
Let it be clear that I share the broken heart of the entire
community because of the recent death of three District of
Columbia police officers and the suffering and pain it has
caused to their families. More to the point, I am extremely
sympathetic to the family and friends of anyone who is slain.
The nature of my ministry causes me to be in a caring
relationship with all who know the anguish of unredemptive
grief. My job is to walk weekly to the cemetery, there to bury
the sad remains of this social insanity.
Even within that context, however, my position against the
death penalty is a longstanding one, a position which I trust
will be taken seriously in this significant body.
In 1992, Congress tried to impose the death penalty on the
District of Columbia, but the late D.C. City Council Chairman
David Clarke, the Rev. Al Galbin, and I organized area
ministers against the manufacturers of semi-automatic weapons.
Our group was responsible for the ``Thou shalt not kill''
posters that were visible throughout the District. Five years
ago, we mounted this campaign with the help of other groups,
and by an overwhelming majority imposed economic consequences
upon the manufacturers of the weapons of death that caused
blood to run in the streets of our city.
It is a strange and curious circumstance which leads to a
discussion of the death penalty before this Subcommittee of the
U.S. Senate. It is also a strange and curious philosophy which
posits that by killing killers, we shall stop killing, that one
act of savagery justifies the next.
The reasons for my opposition to the death penalty are as
old as the Mosaic Torah and are the same in the instance of the
death of a police officer or of a private citizen. The same
injunction which was placed throughout this community in 1992
is the same injunction which must be given today, thou shalt
not kill.
This entire discussion fails to take into account the
culture of violence which has given rise to a segment of our
population which has no value for life. While three police
officers have regrettably lost their lives and while it is at
least politically expedient for some to suggest that police are
being deliberately targeted for death, it is also true that
similarly innocent persons in the larger populous have lost
their lives through drive-by shootings, gangland style murders,
and acts of domestic violence which have literally caused blood
to run in the sewers of this city. Is one death more important
than the next? I think not.
We must respond most forcefully to those conditions which
occasion irrational thought and unthinkable behavior--
joblessness, homelessness, drugs, hopelessness, and a whole
myriad of social diseases which affect this community and so
many others throughout this land.
I am opposed to the death penalty because of the frailty of
our humanity. All of us are fallible, none of us more perfect
than the other. We do not have a perfect criminal justice
system. We have only to remember cases of prisoners being
released after years of incarceration because of DNA tests that
proved them innocent. The recent allegations of tampering with
evidence by criminal justice authorities makes it difficult, if
not impossible, to place total faith in a system operated by
mere mortals and, therefore, subject to critical flaw. Capital
punishment leaves no margin for error. Its consequences are
mortally severe.
You are aware of the typical arguments against capital
punishment. There is no credible evidence that the death
penalty deters crime. States that have death penalty laws do
not have lower crime rates or murder rates than States without
such laws. States that have abolished capital punishment or
instituted it show no significant changes in either crime or
murder rates. Like it or not, in reality, such laws will do
nothing to protect the citizens or communities from the acts of
dangerous criminals.
The issue at hand, however, is far more compelling and
enticing. All reasonable persons would argue for the most
elaborate protection of those who protect us. Nevertheless, for
death penalty laws specifically imposed for the murder of a
police officer, there is no evidence that police officers are
murdered at any lesser rate in States that do not have that
law.
In fact, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers
Memorial Fund, Texas ranked fourth in the Nation in 1996 in the
number of police officers killed, second in 1995, third in
1994. According to Law Enforcement News, prior to the
statistics above, from 1988 through 1993, Texas ranked No. 1 in
police killings. Therefore, if the death penalty for police
officers did deter these murders, the statistics for Texas, the
great State of Senator Hutchison, would be a less striking
phenomenon.
The unvarnished truth of the criminal justice system in
America reveals that the death penalty has a disparate impact
on African-Americans. Since the revival of the death penalty in
the mid-1970's, about half of those on death row at any given
time are of African-American descent. During 1996, of the 3,200
prisoners on death row, 40 percent were black. These statistics
are compiled nationwide, where African-Americans are
approximately 12 percent of the population. It is not that
people of color commit more murders. It is that they are more
often sentenced to death when they do.
Poor people are also far more likely to be death sentenced
than those who can afford the higher cost of private
investigators, psychiatrists, and expert criminal lawyers to be
used in their defense. Some observers have pointed out that the
term capital punishment is ironic because only those without
capital get the punishment.
I personally oppose the death penalty. I am here today
because I believe the residents of the District of Columbia
have an inalienable right to make that decision for themselves.
Only those who are elected and accountable to the citizens of
the District of Columbia have the moral imperative to make the
decisions which are so important and so dire.
That we face a crisis, there is no doubt. This is not a
foreign enemy invasion. It is an internal pathology, which,
though unacceptable, is no justification for an exacerbation of
amoral punishment, the ultimate act of incivility.
In this time of crisis, we must seize the opportunity to be
firm and resolute as we deal with crime but sane and civil with
the treatment of those who are the perpetrators of crime. The
quality of mercy must not be strained. Let there be no
equivocation in my position. Thou shalt not kill.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Dr. Hicks, and Councilwoman
Schwartz. Obviously, you have both spoken against the grain, if
you will, of previous testimony, but this does not come as a
total surprise to the Subcommittee. We appreciate that you are
here. This process works best when we, if you will allow me to
say this, Dr. Hicks, when we do not only hear a chorus of
``amens,'' but when we are challenged to hear all sides, and I
appreciate the eloquence with which you both spoke.
Senator Brownback [presiding]. Thank you, Senator
Lieberman. I apologize. We just had a major issue that I had to
take care of.
If I could ask quickly and directly, Councilwoman Schwartz,
you heard Senator Hutchison testify, saying, ``Look, I am
willing to allow the city to go forward.'' You are a supporter
of capital punishment for protection of police officers. You
heard her say something about somewhere around a July 1 time
frame. Is that a reasonable time frame to give the city the
time to act on this issue?
Ms. Schwartz. Well, it really is not a reasonable time
frame, and what concerns me about this--if you do not mind, let
me tell you a true story.
Senator Lieberman. In your absence, Mr. Chairman,
Councilwoman Schwartz advised us to deep-six Senator
Hutchison's proposal.
Ms. Schwartz. That was a choice. Either vote it down, deep-
six it, or have her withdraw her bill, which unfortunately, she
does not seem amenable to doing.
But let me tell you a true story. In 1992, I mentioned to
you what happened with the Senate initiative on the death
penalty, and unfortunately, Senator Brownback, you did not hear
my testimony, but in my testimony, I stated that defeat of the
death penalty, which was by a 2-to-1 margin, I do believe it
would have probably been more like 50-50 had it not been for
the whole Congressional interference discussion that went on
around it. I actually know people who voted against the
initiative even though they favor the death penalty because of
the Congressional mandate that required us to deal with the
issue. So you have to realize, in any discussion that takes
place in D.C., you--the Congress--can make or break it by what
you do up here.
Now, here is where I am going to bring in my true story. I
came back from Officer Gibson's funeral on February 10 and I
was very emotionally disturbed by that, as I am with each of
these tragic deaths we face in our city. I walked into my
office and I said to my staff, I am going to commit political
suicide in this town, and you have to realize, most of my staff
are against what I was proposing, but I said, I am going to
commit political suicide, but I feel strongly enough about this
issue that I want to propose legislation which would provide
for the death penalty for those who kill law enforcement
officers. That was on February 10, right after the funeral.
About an hour and a half later, one of my staff members
knocked on my door and said that Kay Bailey Hutchison just
offered a bill in the U.S. Senate to impose the death penalty
for those who kill police. I said, oh, shoot. I actually said
something a little stronger than that, which I will not relate
here, but I thought, oh, darn. Here goes any chance that I
might have to get a local discussion going on this very
important issue without having the whole discussion of Congress
getting itself involved. So I put it on the back burner.
Then as the days and weeks went on, I started getting
really mad, because I hate it when Congress tells me what to
do, and if you were in our shoes, you would feel the same way,
and I want to say just one thing on that. You mentioned that
Senator Hutchison, I think, made a good point today when she
said that the Congress is the District's State and States tell
local jurisdictions what to do.
But the difference is, in States that are telling local
jurisdictions what to do, those local jurisdictions have a vote
in their State legislatures, so they have representation. We do
not have voting representation in our ``State,'' the U.S.
Congress, and that is a big inequity which has been long, very
hurtful, and legitimately hurtful in our citizens' feelings
about you all looking out for us.
But anyway, I put this on the back burner because I
thought, there goes any opportunity we will have for this
discussion, which I favor. I probably favor it as passionately
as Senator Hutchison or each of you favors it. And yet, I
wanted to see that local discussion, even though I knew it was
not a popular one here in my home town.
As the days and weeks went by, I started thinking, as much
as I hate Congress telling me what to do, I also equally hated
it that I was allowing Congress, my feelings about Congress, to
keep me from doing what I wanted to do. So then I started
talking to the Mayor and we came out on our own.
I do think it is interesting that Marion Barry and I, who
between the two of us, in 1994 got 98 percent of the vote for
Mayor. He got 56 percent. I got 42 percent. We have come out
together on this same issue. I wish Congress would back off
long enough for us to have a real good local discussion on this
without the hammer over the head of a July date or a blank
date.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Schwartz, what length of time is,
then, reasonable for you to have a real discussion about this?
What would it be?
Ms. Schwartz. I understand from the Chair of the Judiciary
Committee that he does plan to hold a hearing on this issue in
June. It is possible for the Council to either vote it up or
down by July, but I doubt if that will be the case because I do
not think necessarily the votes are there, so it is not going
to be pushed very strongly.
I, then, would consider doing an initiative, a locally
initiated initiative on this issue where the voters could speak
if the Council does not do it. That does take some time. You
have to get an initiative on the ballot. You have to get all
the signatures that are needed and then there would have to be
an election, and we are having some special elections coming
up.
So I would say the end of the year is far more reasonable
than the July date. But there again, I deeply regret the hammer
that I felt Senator Hutchison put over our head today, that if
you do not do this by July, we are going to do it. Now, all of
a sudden, this good local debate is now going to get refocused
away from what it should be focused on and back up here to the
U.S. Congress.
Senator Brownback. I hope you will go ahead and conduct a
local debate in spite of the background noise in the U.S.
Congress, but that you will have a good local debate on it.
Dr. Hicks, could I ask you, and I understand from your
written testimony your position and the heartfeltness of that
position, from you putting that forward in writing in your
comments. Let me ask you, though, what creates in our culture a
situation, the same thing I have asked these other people,
where we have had three police officers stalked and killed in
the District in 4 months. Is there something that can be done
to change that culture? You disagree with one answer here. What
else is there?
Rev. Hicks. My disagreement is primarily with the death
penalty as an answer to the pathology. I am not sure that any
of us have a total solution to it. We heard testimony earlier
with regard to the change that needs to be made in the
educational system, which speaks to the issue of trying to
bring about civility as a matter of changing persons' moral
behavior.
I represent a particular philosophy of life which says that
we are able within the church to shape people's minds and to
mold behaviors. We also believe that parents in their homes
have a great responsibility to mold the moral values of
children, and, therefore, to control their behaviors.
Nevertheless, the reality is that our culture is of such--
in fact, we live in a culture of violence. We not only have the
``Beavis and Buttheads'' that are on television and ``The
Simpsons'' and all of the rest which espouse incivility, which
espouse the kinds of behavior which are certainly anti-social.
We have developed a whole mindset within this country that says
that killing and murder and death are something that are to be
accepted within the society.
That is why every movie that comes out from Hollywood
supports it. That is why almost everything we watch on
television applauds it. That is why we spend billions upon
billions of dollars within the U.S. Senate and the House of
Representatives in order to manufacture weapons of war and
death. And while I understand the necessity to protect the
land, at the same time, we have sent out another message to the
entirety of the world that we will be a people who live by the
instruments of death.
I say to Council Member Schwartz, we are not in a position
where we can accept either suicide or homicide. Neither is an
acceptable alternative. The issue within the District of
Columbia is that the District residents have already held
discussions on this issue and have already exercised their
right to vote by telling us that they are, in fact, opposed to
the death penalty, that, in fact, they are opposed to the
manufacture of semi-automatic weapons.
The reality is that we can debate this ad nauseam and we
still will come up with the same response, because I thoroughly
reject the idea that the only reason why the death penalty
issue was rejected by the citizens of the District of Columbia
had to do with the fact that Congress was intervening. Of
course, that was a part of the process, but at the same time,
underneath everything that you see in Washington, D.C. are a
people who are civil, are people who are moral, are people who
are law abiding, are people who are church going and who are
God believing and who, therefore, reject on a moral ground this
whole idea of a death penalty as a means of exercising control
over whatever anti-social behavior there is within the
community.
It simply seems to me that we need to find other ways to
correct the social ills that bring about the problems that we
have. Do I have a crystal ball that will tell you what that
will be? Obviously not, but we must work together in order to
be agents of life and not the agents of death.
Senator Brownback. You make a very passionate and very
clear and good response. Studies certainly support the concept
that capital punishment, while it may be beneficial, it may
not, I mean, they do go back and forth on it, and I do not hold
it as the ``be all and end all'' answer to a culture that
tolerates this sort of situation. Yet, we are all groping. You
cannot let this type of activity continue.
Rev. Hicks. Nor can you permit it to be a knee-jerk
reaction to the fact that we have had three deaths, which are
regrettable, and we understand that and our hearts go out to
the families. Nevertheless, there are countless others. The
body bags are not just of police officers. The body bags are of
butchers or of bakers, of children, of parents, of grandparents
who have been taken away to the morgue by the same kind of
insanity.
So the solution is not to respond to the needs of one
segment of the population, but to the entirety of the issue.
Senator Brownback. Then what do we do?
Rev. Hicks. We have got to attack it on all fronts. We
cannot attack it in this one manner. If this one manner were to
solve the issue, then I would agree with you, but it will not.
It must be a comprehensive response to the problem and not an
isolated response.
Senator Brownback. When you can identify the specifics of
our comprehensive response, or maybe you will be willing to
look at the package of ideas that we will put forward for the
District of Columbia, for the schools and for the areas of
crime and for the areas of economic growth and development and
for the overall areas of what we can do to revitalize this
system.
But, you know, there is one thing we cannot do here from
Congress. There are many things we cannot do from here in
Congress, and that is really work on the soul. That ultimately
is where we get at, and I hope you are having a great growth
and revival taking place in your church and throughout this
community because that is your job and not ours, and----
Rev. Hicks. It is a matter of soul, but sometimes it is
also a matter of some real mundane kinds of things. In other
words, we see that in the District, for instance, that the
money for the youth program for the summer has been cut out and
it looks as though we will not be able to have that money. The
one program that we had in this city that was about the
business of trying to save the lives of young people in the
District of Columbia is now being ripped apart, primarily
because of the initiatives by the Control Board and others to
bring the city back into line financially. I understand that.
At the same time, we are being asked in the churches to
then take the young people and find something to do with them
in order to give them the kind of support that they will need.
These children are about to be put back out on the street,
where they need to be employed, they need to be in churches,
they need to be in synagogues, they need to be in other kinds
of agencies where they can be trained and where they can be
taught the lessons of civility.
But if the very foundation upon which we are seeking to
build is destroyed and is taken from us, then I am afraid,
Senator, that we will find that our problems will be
exacerbated rather than relieved.
Senator Brownback. Thank you for your testimony, and both
of you, as well.
I thank everyone for attending. I appreciate it and we will
have further hearings on the District of Columbia. The hearing
is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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