Policing Our Changing City

Now that the District of Columbia Council has made it official, approving Peter Newsham’s appointment as police chief, he — and also we the people — can start thinking in broader terms about policing, the changing city and the proper use of resources.

In Newsham, the city has one of the most experienced officers at the top that it’s ever had, an up-from-the-ranks officer who has led several districts in the city, including the Second District (which includes Georgetown).

He stood tall in the city’s last major policing challenge, the back-to-back national events in January: President Donald Trump’s inauguration, which saw focused demonstrations and a measured police response, and the Women’s March on Washington the following day.

More to the point, Newsham’s experience has given him an up-close-and-personal knowledge of the city and its geographically varied policing issues. In short, what works on Capitol Hill may not work in Georgetown, Dupont Circle, the changing Shaw neighborhood or Anacostia.

Newsham strikes most people as a strong leader, but the type who’s also accessible and down to earth, comfortable with all the citizens of the District.

The police force itself is facing some issues. For one thing, the force is by most accounts seriously understaffed, so putting some monetary resources into play would be useful. The practice of using body cameras still seems to be evolving.

In a more general way, we feel that community policing — not just in terms of a patrol-car presence in the neighborhoods, but walkabouts and improvements in communication and access — needs more than ever to be strongly emphasized.

The reasoning is fairly simple in outline, but hasn’t been fully digested by politicians, elected officials, educators and other community leaders. In what sometimes seems to us like a madcap rush to become the San Francisco of the Beltway, this city is changing rapidly in its ethnic, racial and demographic makeup. Neighborhoods are changing both in their identity and in their resources.

Mayor Bower and the Council are trying (it seems to us not very effectively) to pursue the ephemeral goal of “affordable housing,” while the public schools are shifting their resources to charter schools and the word “luxury” dominates almost every new development.

The changing culture and society make it very difficult for the working class and the middle class, as well as the cultural class, to make ends meet. We’re already seeing efficiencies going for $2,000 a month. That means there’s a lot of displacement happening in the city, a lot of elbow rubbing at the tipping points of change in every neighborhood, except perhaps Georgetown.  

That’s a challenge for all of us, but it’s also a challenge for the city’s police officers and leadership. Having lived through this city’s recent transformation, Chief Newsham seem well suited to deal with the tensions sure to arise as it proceeds.