The D.C. Police Union has little faith in their Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier, calling her “impotent and ineffective” as well as using “gimmicky deployment” to attempt to fight the district’s skyrocketing crime rate.
An overwhelming majority of Washington D.C. Police Union members voted over the weekend that they do not have confidence in Lanier.
According to CBS News, the D.C. Police Union said Monday that it asked its more than 3,600 members, “Do you have confidence that Chief Cathy Lanier is able to properly manage the resources of the Metropolitan Police Department and keep the citizens safe?” Around 97.5 percent of the 1,150 officers who responded to the weekend poll answered “no.”
“The D.C. Police Union has been frustrated with the leadership of MPD for years. Failure to negotiate contracts in good faith, no cost of living increases, unreasonable scheduling disruptions, cancelled and banned vacation time, bad faith bargaining, heavy handed and capricious discipline, disingenuous reporting of statistics and data, impotent and ineffective policing strategies, disbanding of the most effective units, gimmicky deployment, toxic management, a skyrocketing attrition rate, and an inability to fundamentally keep our neighborhoods, our citizens and our officers safe have all contributed to the fact that our members have lost confidence in the leadership of the Chief,” D.C. Police Union spokesman Marinos Marinos wrote in an e-mail statement to The Daily Caller.
“This ‘No Confidence‘ vote is a symbolic gesture of our members’ long-building desire for a new direction in policing in the District.”
Chief Lanier told CBS News that the vote may have been skewed, because an “All Hands on Deck” measure that pulled officers off of vacation and desk duty happened recently.
“After 25 years of policing D.C. streets, deploying officers and strategies, and building a force of highly qualified officers and leaders, in the good times and the tough times, too, I have every confidence in Chief Lanier,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement.