Yesterday, an arbitrator ruled that the D.C. police department's "All Hands on Deck" initiative violated the officers' contract and must be stopped. Chief Cathy L. Lanier promptly announced that the show must go on, indicating her intention to continue with AHOD weekends scheduled for November and December.

At this point, one cannot be surprised by the city opting for a take-no-prisoners strategy toward litigation. That's par for the course under bulldog Attorney General Peter J. Nickles.

But the decision to continue with AHODs during the appeal process stands to incur tremendous costs to the District in a time when city budgeting is under immense pressures. And not just in legal fees: In his decision yesterday, arbitrator John C. Truesdale awarded overtime pay to officers who have participated in this year's AHODs.

Read More "Is Keeping AHOD Worth a $3M Budget Hit?" »

The Metropolitan Police Department's "All Hands on Deck" initiative violates the terms of officers' labor contract and must be ended, an arbitrator has ruled.

"AHODs," three-day periods during which all sworn police officers are required to work eight-hour patrol shifts, have been a favorite tool of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Chief Cathy L. Lanier since 2007. They've credited the initiative with being at least partly responsible for record low levels of violent crime. But police union officials have long decried the AHODs as essentially a publicity stunt that generate goodwill for politicians at the expense of rank-and-file officers. The Fraternal Order of Police filed a grievance challenging the practice earlier this year.

In an opinion released today [PDF], arbitrator John C. Truesdale largely agreed with the union's arguments, ruling that the AHODs violated several terms of the police contract. He declined to take into account the policing value of the AHODs, calling them "apparently well received in the District of Columbia." But due to the contract violations, he ordered the department to rescind the 2009 AHOD order and pay time-and-a-half overtime to officers who participated in the six AHODs that have taken place this year.

Read More "No More ‘All Hands on Deck’ for D.C. Cops, Ruling Says" »

If only this car could talk. Though it looks like somebody thought it could talk, which is why they shot it full of holes.

In any case, there's gotta be a story behind the black vehicle identified in its temporary tags as a 1998 Land Rover (VIN #391804) now sitting across the street from Pierce Park in Adams Morgan.

There are magic marker-type writings on the windows that seem to indicate somebody from the 5th District of the Metropolitan Police Department marked the car on May 9. That same somebody tried to cover the shot-up windows and put duct tape over the bullet holes. They're big holes.

A neighborhood resident told me some shady-looking fellows who didn't look anything like cops recently dumped the auto off as discreetly as they could. The resident told me the dumpers didn't appear to be happy when they noticed somebody was watching the drop.

Read More "What’s the Story With the Shot-Up Range Rover on Adams Mill Road?" »

Late last week, the New York Giants released troubled wide receiver Plaxico Burress in what news accounts described as a very unexpected turn of events. The team, after all, had left the door open for Burress' return following a November incident in which his unregistered gun allegedly went off in a New York nightclub.

Perhaps what set off the Giants was Burress' behavior in a March 18 traffic stop in south Florida. The 6-foot-5 receiver was reportedly driving like "he was going to kill somebody," according to a police report cited in an account in the New York Post. It was apparently Burress's fifth traffic violation in a month.

Once pulled over, Burress acted like a guy who'd learned nothing from the events of the past six months. Here's the Post's news account:

The embattled gridder-- who was released by the Giants on Friday and faces 3½ years in prison on a gun-possession charge after shooting himself in the leg at a Manhattan nightclub on Nov. 29 -- followed every question and command with a "F- - - you," according to the citation.

How's that for making T.O. look like an angel?

At 7:30 p.m. Mount Pleasant and Irving Streets NW opened up. But they were closed for some time following an accident between a UPS truck and a sedan. According to D.C. police on the scene, four cops were injured but they were going to be OK. The accident did not look good. There was yellow police tape everywhere---closing down most of Mount Pleasant Street. Tape blocked off Irving Street as well. Crowds gathered at the corner to watch and gossip about who was at fault, marvel at the sturdiness of the UPS truck, and try to figure out what the cops were doing before they got injured. DCist was on the scene first.

Update 7:51 p.m.: "All non-life threatening injuries," reports Officer Quintin Peterson at the D.C. Police Department's public information office. He adds that his fellow officers were not pursing anyone at the time of the accident. "They were just driving, the guy just hit them from the side."  No blame has been assigned as the investigation is on going.

More pictures after the jump.

Read More "Accident @ Mount Pleasant And Irving Streets NW" »

Can we keep you, Eliot Swainson?

The guy, after all, has a knack for being in the right place at the right time in this town, Superman-style. First off, the Houston transit cop, on loan to the Metro transit police for the inauguration, saved a 68-year-old woman who fell onto the tracks by rolling her under the lip of a Chinatown/Galley Place platform as a train passed.

Then, as a Houston TV station reported yesterday, he was among the first responders to the deadly rowhouse fire on North Capitol Street on Wednesday. According to CNN, Swainson and others knocked on doors of adjacent houses to evacuate those folks.

Please, can we keep you, please?

The Washington Post reported today that Maryland State Police had classified 53 non-violent activists---anti-Iraq War and anti-death penalty demonstrators---as terrorists. State police had "entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday."

The news came out of a legislative hearing in which the state's top cop had given testimony. The Post notes that the disclosure showed that the cops' surveillance operations of activists were far more extensive than previously known:

"The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists 'fringe people.'

[Superintendent Terrence B.] Sheridan said protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations in the databases, but his staff has not identified which ones.

Stunned senators pressed Sheridan to apologize to the activists for the spying, assailed in an independent review last week as 'overreaching' by law enforcement officials who were oblivious to their violation of the activists' rights of free expression and association. The letter, obtained by The Washington Post, does not apologize but admits that the state police have 'no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime' by those classified as terrorists."

When are the police going to learn from the mistakes of the past?