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Earlier today, the D.C. Council judiciary committee held its annual public oversight hearing for the Metropolitan Police Department. During the hearing, Chief Cathy Lanier outlined her department’s priorities for the upcoming year, which, as the Post reports, includes a commitment to “[curb] homicides, [confront] family violence and [stave] off a potential wave of retirements” within the department.
But according to a new report, one of the priorities the MPD should make is establishing a better relationship with the District’s LGBTQ community. According to the report, which evaluates the status of MPD’s implementation of recommendations from the Hate Crimes Assessment Task Force and the LGBTQ community’s response, a lot more can be done.
The HCATF released its findings in February of last year after Lanier formed it in 2011, issuing recommendations the MPD can make to improve its relationship with the LGBTQ community. Among the areas the original report made recommendations for is the effectiveness of MPD’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU), LGBTQ cultural competency training, interactions with D.C.’s trans communities, hate crime data collection, intimate partner violence training, and interactions with sex workers.
Of the eight recommendations made to improve MPD’s GLLU, only one has been completed—the appointment of a strong leader to lead the unit. According to the report, Sgt. Jessica Hawkins—the first openly trans person to hold the role—took over the unit full-time earlier this month. The rest of the report’s recommendations are listed as either “No progress to date,” “In progress,” or “Limited Progress.”
And the same could be said for the other areas. Hate crime data collection hasn’t improved, though the status of “Improve training” in this area is listed as “In progress.” The community response—which is comprised of organizations such as Casa Ruby, The D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, D.C. Trans Coalition, Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence, HIPS, and the Rainbow Response Coalition—says that “a clearer articulation of how MPD is working to improve this aspect of reporting is
needed.”
The report also concludes that, while members of trans communities “report generally positive interactions with members of GLLU,” the lack of broader outreach to the community is troublesome. Moreover, the trans community is insisting on knowing the MPD’s progress in solving unsolved trans homicides, “some dating to over a decade ago.”
Though the LGBTQ community has been working with the GLLU to adequately train officers to handle hate crimes and interact with the community, the report concludes that the training isn’t going so well. “Though we believe the training content is of good quality, we remain concerned that insufficient time has been allocated to train on a significant amount of material,” the community response reads.
Finally, the report reveals grave concerns the community has with the MPD’s hate crime reporting, with not much information shared with the LGBTQ community about how they report hate crimes or the response policies.
“We continue to believe that MPD has the appropriate policies in place, but needs to ensure that they are implemented as robustly as possible,” the community response says. “We continue to receive reports of officers who refuse to mark a crime as a potential hate crime until the situation is advanced to a supervisor or the GLLU.”
You can read the full report and community responses below:
