The Washington, D.C. Council unanimously rejected an $11 million proposal by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for more police in the district amid growing violence.
Instead, council members approved a “compromise” package that gave $5 million to the Metropolitan Police Department for more officers and $6 million toward other violence prevention methods.
“This is a balanced approach that will bring down MPD’s excessive overtime spending, maintain its hiring pipeline, and also stop the small number of people committing violence before they pull the trigger,” read a statement from the council. “Gun violence is rising because it’s contagious like a disease; a police-only response would have been a band aid that ignores the causes, when what the District needs is a vaccine.”
At-large Council Member Elissa Silverman criticized the mayor’s request for coming after shootings outside Nationals Park and on the popular 14th street, “where CNN Correspondents dined.”
“You know more police might make Jim Acosta feel a little safer at Le Diplomate, but it’s not going to stop the shooting anywhere in this city, and especially where they happen the most,” she said.
While Silverman praised the council’s compromise approach, she acknowledged, “We don’t know if the alternative approaches will reduce the shootings either."
The issue of not having enough police in the department is one that the department and at least three police chiefs have been dealing with for years, going back to at least 2015 when Chief Lanier was warning of a looming retirement bubble.
The D.C. Police Union says officers are stretched and stressed, adding MPD has now lost over 400 officers since last summer either through retirement or resignation. The union also says the department is at record lows with below 3,500 members on the force. (Fox 5)
"The problem is that the City Council is not legislating on what the citizens want, they’re legislating on what activists want – and that’s why we’ve got ourselves in a situation with violent crime and mass exodus of officers," said D.C. Union Chairman, Greggory Pemberton, reports Fox 5.