It’s not exactly a banner day for D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. The Examiner takes the chief to task a bit this morning for her latest “All Hands on Deck” initiative: four people were shot in the course of an hour during the second night of the effort, which also coincided with National Night Out events, and the force is seriously short handed today as well as Wednesday and Friday to avoid spending millions on overtime. Fewer than half the number of officers needed to patrol some neighborhoods are available to work the second half of this week. Some officers are estimating the entire police force is down by about a third right now.

And then there’s that canceled move to a new headquarters in Southeast we mentioned briefly earlier. The story goes like this: Back in December, before Lanier was on the job, the city signed a 20-year lease for the site, a 400,000 square foot building at 225 Virginia Ave. SE. But Lanier and other city officials had a six-month grace period to change their minds before paying any rent. After, we can only presume, examining their options during that time, the D.C. Council went ahead and approved $6.5 million in April so that Chief Lanier and about 200 officers could make the move in 2009, with over 1,100 officers eventually scheduled to be transferred to the new facility. The city made the first $542,000 payment in July.

Then suddenly yesterday, everything went a little nutty. The DC Office of Property Management put out a cryptic press release saying the move had been canceled, with the following statement from Director Lars Etzkorn: