The D.C. Police Union is suing the District government over emergency police reforms enacted in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis and the renewed movement for racial justice.
In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, the union takes issue with provisions in those reforms that could make it easier for the Metropolitan Police Department chief or management to fire officers over disciplinary actions.
The law bars the union from negotiating with the department over disciplinary procedures for sworn officers in labor negotiations. And the union says this effectively exempts MPD officers from protections enjoyed by thousands of other D.C. government employees.
“These reductions in our employee protections are a violation of our rights under the Constitution, particularly the guarantee of equal protection under the law to all citizens and groups,” the union says in a release. “The DC Council and the Mayor have enacted legislation that targets and discriminates against DC police officers.”
More than 40 other unions that represent District government employees remain empowered to negotiate with agency management over disciplinary procedures during contract talks, thanks to a 1979 law, according to the police union.
The union’s lawsuit comes as D.C. and other U.S. cities continue to debate potential legal and cultural changes to policing. As part of that, police unions have faced increased scrutiny over their role in shielding officers from accountability. Meanwhile, major labor organizations are grappling with their traditional inclusion of police unions among their ranks throughout history.
The policing reforms D.C. lawmakers passed state that “all matters pertaining to the discipline of sworn law enforcement personnel shall be retained by management and not be negotiable.” This applies to “any collective bargaining agreements entered into” by the District and the D.C. Police Union after Sept. 30, 2020, the end of the current fiscal year as well as the current police contract.
The reforms, which also ban officers from using neck restraints and speed up the city’s public release of police body-camera footage, were approved on a fast-tracked basis by the D.C. Council and signed into law by Mayor Muriel Bowser in July. The council is still considering a permanent version of the legislation, which is expected to be taken up this fall.
The lawsuit accuses D.C. elected officials of making “a deliberate and reactionary concession to anti-police rhetoric and protests being carried out by a small number of citizens, many of whom are not even District residents.” (The recent protests in D.C. were some of the biggest and most sustained demonstrations the city has ever seen, and there was no shortage of locals who joined in, reporting by DCist/WAMU has shown.) The complaint calls for the U.S. District Court for D.C. to declare the contested provisions in the police reforms “invalid and unconstitutional.”
Asked about the lawsuit at a press conference Wednesday, Bowser said she had not yet reviewed it but that her administration would work with D.C.’s attorneys to defend the District. And in a statement, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen—who shepherded many of the reforms as chair of the council’s judiciary committee—says the legislature unanimously agreed that the police union shouldn’t decide how its members are disciplined in closed-door sessions.
“This is an issue of obvious local and national importance,” Allen says. “While I respect the union for advocating for its members, this conversation is about rebuilding trust so that the public can truly believe that police themselves will be held accountable for their conduct.”
MPD declined to comment on the lawsuit. The department currently employs about 3,600 sworn officers, but the union claims some are considering leaving or retiring early because of the legislation.
