As the Washington Post pointed out in an interesting profile of Acting Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier this morning, the D.C. Council is set to vote on her confirmation in two weeks. While the choice of Lanier as Chief by Mayor Adrian Fenty was by no means without controversy — she is after all young, white and female, in a force that’s mostly black and male — there’s little to suggest the Council won’t support Fenty’s choice for the job. That said, the Post’s portrait of Lanier as hardworking to the point of over-extending herself made us think to take a quick, informal poll of our staff to see what our impressions are of the first 60 days or so of Lanier’s work as D.C. Police Chief.

Much has been said about her initiative to put more beat cops, including many more on foot, out on D.C.’s streets to prevent crime. Not to mention that early data is showing crime was down in every category for the month of February. But when it comes to public safety in a city like ours, the proof can often be more in how people feel about their safety, instead of in the numbers. In other words, if the stats have gone down for a month or two but no one sees a difference, is that really a victory?

So check out some of the responses I got from the DCist staff, and add your own to the comments. We’ll create an informal report card to help the Council to assess Lanier’s work so far. Yes, we realize it’s early to really judge her performance fairly, and that this is totally unscientific, but we’re all interested to find out whether things might have actually changed, even if just a little, already. Also, unfortunately the only DCist folks who responded all seem to live in NW (though we have writers in many parts of the city), so anyone living in neighborhoods not mentioned at all here are especially encouraged to add their impressions.

• Personally, I have noticed that for the last 2-3 weeks, there has almost always been a cop outside the Shaw metro station, which is a pretty amazing change — it means I can actually use that stop late a night. I don’t know how long it will last, but I love it.
• There’s a foot chase between drug dealers and cops at least every other week between the back of Nehmiah and up through the alleys to Euclid before the BP at 14th. The cops usually win.