DC Police Operational Orders And Directives

From themail@DCWatch, information on how the DC police are supposed to do it (by their own orders and directives):

Police Documents Released in Response to PCJF Lawsuit
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, mvh@justiceonline.org

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has just obtained a massive disclosure of previously withheld documents governing police operations. The PCJF forced the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, DC (MPD) to disclose nearly all of its General Orders and Special Orders and related directives that dictate how officers are to exercise their authority. Most of this information has been withheld by the police from the public. Those orders, released in response to a PCJF lawsuit, are being posted and made publicly available on the PCJF’s web site at http://www.justiceonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=DCMPDIndexOfDirectives or by visiting DCMPD.org.

The PCJF filed a lawsuit on February 5 to force the DC Metropolitan Police Department’s operations out of the shadows through disclosure of its orders and policies. The DC MPD was in violation of its legal obligations, as mandated by the DC Council in 2001, to make this information public and had further refused to make such information public upon written request under the DC Freedom of Information Act. The PCJF’s lawsuit followed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for these documents. The public can now review what the MPD internal policy dictates regarding police-resident contacts, stops and frisks, restrictions on MPD high speed vehicular pursuits, use of closed circuit television cameras, handling of property, obligations to release persons through the citation release program, electronic recording of interrogations, use of canines, traffic safety compliance checkpoints, and a range of other issues that span the full scope of police authority. Advocacy organizations now have access to orders pertaining to processing of deaf or hearing impaired citizens, juveniles, transgendered persons and other groups requiring special care.

The MPD has long refused efforts from civil rights and civil liberties and community based organizations for this disclosure, but the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund went to court to get the documents. The MPD is still withholding a smaller number of orders claiming they are “law enforcement sensitive” and the MPD has yet to release, as demanded, copies of its staff manuals. These matters remain pending before the Court. The PCJF has also sued to force the MPD to publish these materials on the Internet, and to maintain them as current, so that citizens and the public can access these materials on demand without even having to file a request. Internet publication is required by the DC Freedom of Information statute, but the MPD has refused to comply with the law. In response to the PCJF lawsuit, the MPD posted some “selected” Orders on its web site. However the materials obtained by the PCJF and now being made available on the PCJF web site are a vastly larger trove of records and resources.

Last month, DC Superior Court Judge Judith N. Macaluso ruled in favor of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund that it could proceed with its suit to compel the MPD to comply with those Internet publication directives. “Public disclosure of the operational policies and practices, orders and staff instructions of the police department is essential for policing in a democratic society and to establish accountability,” stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, cofounder and attorney with the PCJF. “Disclosure is essential to ensure that the police department does not operate above the law and does not constitute the law, but performs those functions and exercises only that authority which the citizenry has deemed appropriate,” she continued.

http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2009/09-10-28.htm