Yesterday, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier released a statement on the incident. "I take concerns about the appropriate use of police powers very seriously," Lanier said. "Members who are found to have abused their authority are subject to both criminal and disciplinary penalties up to and including termination." So, was Culp canned over the slur-happy arrest?

Lanier refused to comment on the disciplinary penalties applied to Culp. But according to Lanier, Culp was not, at least, subject to criminal penalties over the arrest. The D.C. police's Internal Affairs Bureau "immediately launched a criminal investigation into the matter and subsequently referred the arrest to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for further criminal investigation and prosecution, if appropriate," Lanier says—but the Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Culp.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Tuma, is looking for more than just discipline—it wants to revise D.C.'s "disorderly conduct" statute to reduce the possibility for police abuse. The ACLU told Fox 5 that "disorderly conduct" is "a false charge used every time an officer thinks someone has spoken disrespectfully or harshly to them, so we want that changed." Lanier disagrees with the ACLU's characterization of the law—she says that "disorderly conduct" is a necessary charge to prevent people from "urinating in public" or "blocking the sidewalk or road and refusing to let others pass." But she adds that D.C. police are committed to working alongside the ACLU to review the statute.

Lanier will say that Culp's tactic isn't exactly the D.C. police's preferred method for dealing with citizens who mouth off to cops. That would be something called "Verbal Judo."

"[B]elieve me, police do not make an arrest every time an officer thinks someone 'has spoken disrespectfully or harshly to them,'" Lanier's statement continued. "That happens everyday, and we train officers in a widely used tactical communication strategy (Verbal Judo) to defuse these situations." Lanier added that "Verbal Judo" is "by no means a magic wand," but that "it would be a mistake to let this case in which an officer is alleged to have acted outside both the law and Department policy drive the current discussion about revisions to the law."

"This is an action for damages and other relief by Pepin A. Tuma, who was detained, arrested and humiliated by Defendant Officer James Culp without any lawful basis and with the sole and illegitimate purpose of harassing Mr. Tuma because of Mr. Tuma’s criticism of the police and Officer Culp’s perception that Mr. Tuma is gay," the complaint reads.

Tuma—accompanied by friends Luke Platzer and David Stetson on U Street that night—admits to engaging in some light taunting prior to his arrest. From his complaint:

Across the street, on the north side of U Street, several police cruisers were parked with their lights on and several police officers were engaging in what appeared to be a traffic stop of a single civilian. Mr. Tuma noticed the police cruisers and commented to his friends that this seemed to be another example of excessive policing. As Mr. Tuma passed the police cruisers, he said, in a sing-song voice, “I hate the police; I hate the police.” Neither Mr. Tuma nor his friends stopped or slowed down as they walked. They did not approach, address or gesture to any of the police officers.

Then, Tuma claims:

Within seconds . . . Officer Culp charged across U Street shouting, in substance, "Who do you think you are? Who do you think you’re talking to? You can’t talk to me that way!" . . . When Officer Culp reached Mr. Tuma, he forcefully pushed Mr. Tuma up against a utility box . . . handcuffed him, and dragged him across to the north side of U Street to the police cruisers where he was searched and placed under arrest. Mr. Tuma did not resist in any way. When Mr. Tuma asked why he was being arrested, Officer Culp replied, “Just shut up, faggot.” . . . Mr. Tuma later learned that he had been arrested for disorderly conduct.

According to the complaint, Tuma filed complaints against Culp with the Second District police station, the D.C. Office of Police Complaints, and D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier. Tuma's complaint says that Culp was disciplined over the arrest. Tuma, who is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, is now suing Culp and D.C. for violating his constitutional rights, false arrest, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress—as evidenced by the slur.

Tuma seeks compensatory damages—and "an injunction directing the District of Columbia to expunge all records of his arrest . . . and authorizing him to deny that he was arrested on July 26, 2009." I have an e-mail out to MPD for comment.

* Alyssa Rosenberg articulates my annoyance with the glamorization of "housewife":

This is a show [Real Housewives] where the term that distinguishes the franchise, "housewife," is pretty much stripped of all meaning. You don't have to be married to be a Real Housewife. You don't even have to be dating anyone particularly seriously. And you're almost certainly not simply a stay-at-home wife or mom if you've been found interesting enough to be on the show. You're running a business, or a charity, or at the very least, stirring up a hell of a lot of trouble semi-professionally. Being an American wife doesn't mean anything in particular these days. That definitional void might be scary, but it's also an opportunity to fill it up with something valuable and interesting and varied.

Interesting. I've always seen the show's title as a shallow attempt to redefine successful women solely by their roles as wives and mothers. But perhaps it works the other way, too—housewives can have it all. Even jobs!

* Via the Washington Blade: D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier has launched an investigation into a satirical flier circulated around the force announcing "D.C.’s First Deaf Mute Gay Marriage."

* Not only will watching porn cause you to get raped, it may also kill you!

* Graph! Canada loves gay marriage. And "Kisses to the 3.5 percent of gay-affirming Jamaicans," Rick Rosendall writes at GLAA Forum.

* NOM tour hits Maryland, attempts to prevent all video evidence of the event:

[youtube:v=qe9QNdcRplw]

Photo via The U.S. National Archives

According to internal police documents, sexual assaults in the first half of 2010 are up as much as 325% in areas across the District. Baumann's letter breaks down the numbers:

Internal department documents show that as of June 8, 2010, serious sexual assaults were up 46% city-wide (from 56 during the same period in 2009 to 82 in 2010 . . .  The increases in serious sexual assaults were not uniform throughout the city. The Second Police District (Ward 3) had a 250% increase (from 2 in 2009 to 7 in 2010) and the Third Police District (Ward 1) had a 133% increase (from 6 in 2009 to 14 in 2010). Both of those increases are alwarming and certainly necessitated a proactive response from the police Department, both in enforcement activity and increasing public awareness of not only the problenm, but also resouces for victims and individuals in abusive relationships.

In the Seventh Police District (Ward 8), the increase in serious sexual assaults has been dramatic. Serious sexual assaults increased 325% from 2009 to 2010 (from 4 in 2009 to 17 in 2010). It is important to remember that the Seventh Police District covers an area of only 6.5 square miles and a population of some 60,000. The fact that 17 serious sexual assaults have taken place in an area that small with a population that size cannot be taken lightly. The fact that the Department has taken no steps to identify the problem, warn the public, create education and awareness programs, focus on registered sex offenders, and proactively address the crisis is indefensible.

It's impossible to say whether the increase is due to more assaults or better assault reporting. But Baumann's greater concern centers on discrepancies between the way sexual assaults are reported internally within the police department and externally to the public:

The Department's website contains crime statistics for the city and individual police districts. Rtaher than report serious "sexual assaults" as a category as it oes in internal documents, the Department on its website instead reports all sexual incidents as "sex abuse." This allows the Department to include all criominal sexual reports in one category.

As a result, criminal sexual misdemeanors (e.g. unwanted touching) are included in the numbers for sexual offenses. The number of misdemeanors is significantly higher than the serious felony sexual assaults, and their presence in the same category skews the numbers and serves to mask the increase in serious sexual assaults. For example, the Department's website reported that in 2010 for the Seventh Police District up to June 8, 2010, "sexual abuse" was actually down by 3% (from 33 in 2009 to 32 in 2010).

So by grouping all sexual offenses together—from groping to violent rape—the D.C. police department has obscured (intentionally or not) the increase in reports of the more serious offenses. Beyond the numbers, Baumann's also concerned with the department's tone—he took Lanier to task for downplaying acquaintance rape in her appearance on WTOP earlier this month. Baumann has called for D.C.'s Office of the Inspector General and the D.C. Council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary to investigate the police department's reporting practices.

In an e-mail to WTOP, Police Chief Cathy Lanier wrote, "I have absolutely no problem with the OIG conducting an investigation into my crime statistics." Lanier chalked the controversy up to "confusion" over the department's comprehensive reporting practices: "I am committed to providing full and complete information on crime in the District. Indeed, if anything, more confusion arises because we do provide data in a variety of formats that allow people to analyze the data themselves."

Given the huge percentage of sexual assaults that are never reported to the police—and the added concern that D.C. police don't always investigate reports they do get—this could actually be a good sign for the District. Lanier didn't go that far: "You can't just look at numbers and not do any analysis and use that as something to warn or scare people with, you gotta kinda look at what the facts are," she told WTOP. She agreed to come back with more information on the problem in her next appearance on the program.

Recently, D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier decided to restructure the department's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU)—a unit of officers specially-trained in LGBT issues—in order to disperse trained officers across the force. The move has been criticized by LGBT activist groups, who are concerned with the force's ability to adequately address LGBT-specific crime without a visible, coordinated, and well-staffed unit.

Today, the D.C. Trans Coalition (DCTC), the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club released a statement enumerating their beefs with the decision. "MPD Chief Cathy Lanier is poised to call this initiative a success, but we are unfortunately quite skeptical," they write. "An award-winning unit has been effectively dismantled without meaningful input from the very community that unit serves."

Full release after the jump.

December 9, 2009

Contact:

Sadie Ryanne Baker, DC Trans Coalition, 202.557.1951
Rick Rosendall, GLAA, 202.328.6278
Chris Farris, GLOV, 202.368.5321

Broad Coalition of LGBT Community Organizations Oppose Metropolitan Police Department Plan to Restructure Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit: Groups object to flaws and inadequacies found throughout new GLLU training program for affiliate officers.

Washington, DC – Today a broad coalition of DC’s LGBT community groups stand together to express our severe disappointment with the Metropolitan Police Department’s ill-conceived plan to restructure the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU). MPD Chief Cathy Lanier is poised to call this initiative a success, but we are unfortunately quite skeptical. An award-winning unit has been effectively dismantled without meaningful input from the very community that unit serves. Lanier is quick to point out that she and her staff have held meetings with community members to discuss their plans, but she fails to mention that not one critique of her plan was accepted.

In spite of repeated requests, MPD has not been able to say how many officers will serve GLLU full-time (there is currently only one, with three on full-time leave), whether GLLU will again have a full-time sergeant, or how new affiliated officers will be effectively coordinated to both respond to LGBT issues and learn and share best practices. Many members of our communities have had exceptionally negative experiences with police, while others have enjoyed quite positive interactions – these latter advances have often been credited to GLLU’s outreach work both within and outside the MPD. Thus to upend this unit without seeking real community input calls into question MPD’s self-stated claim to serve our communities. We look forward to MPD demonstrating its willingness to act in good faith to work with us in both cleaning up the fallout from this hasty restructuring program and in making additional progress in other areas.

Moreover, community members have been largely shut out of the process to develop the training course for GLLU’s new affiliate officers, which concluded last Friday. Lanier has boasted that 32 hours of classroom training have been provided to these officers. However, only 2 of those hours featured any discussion whatsoever of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. The MPD promised to share its training curriculum with community representatives at a meeting on October 22, yet failed to do so. At that same meeting, organizations were promised an invitation to suggest reading materials, case studies and specific modules for the training program. Finally, the Chief stated under oath at a City Council Hearing on November 20 that she would share the curriculum for the training with the LGBT community and incorporate their feedback. There was absolutely no follow-up to this invitation, despite repeated requests by LGBT community organizations. Last week, some LGBT community leaders were invited to speak at the training session (for 10-15 minutes each). They were given less than two days and asked to prepare outlines of their presentations before attending. This left no time for any real preparation, and only allowed for a few minutes of time for community members – almost entirely volunteers – to present anything at all.

In addition, individuals who were able to sit in on the training are deeply concerned about numerous errors of omission and commission that will seriously endanger DC’s LGBT communities. Specific concerns include:

• Failure to consult with the LGBT community to foster confidence and gather community input to inform the training,
• Failure to follow through on the commitment to have stand-alone GLLU training for at least half a day – instead, training was limited to less than two hours, and with combined attendees from both the GLLU and the Latino Liaison Unit;
• Failure to provide culturally competent training for officers on how to sensitively approach and manage specific needs for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual and gender non-conforming individuals;
• Failure to include in the curriculum any discussion of the distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity;
• Failure to discuss the need to actively curtail profiling trans individuals as criminals;
• Failure to address domestic violence situations, which make up 82 percent of GLLU’s caseload, until after training was well underway, which converted what limited LGBT Domestic Violence training there was into a mopping-up exercise;
• Failure to provide guidance and training on how to appropriately track and record hate crimes related to an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression;
• Failure to address strategies on how to ensure a supportive workplace for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender affiliate officers and those performing LGBT liaison duties;
• Failure to develop a public education plan aimed at encouraging community members to report homophobic and transphobic violence and crimes;
• Failure to encourage affiliate officers to attend significant LGBT events to promote visibility and develop strong and meaningful relationships between police and LGBT community members.

There is a critical need for a more comprehensive LGBT training program to be provided before new affiliate officers are certified as GLLU members – a training program that is developed in partnership with the LGBT community. This includes intensive field training with existing GLLU officers, and in-depth classroom training that covers the range of safety, discrimination, and access to justice issues that LGBT individuals face across this city. We also feel strongly that we need answers to the key questions on the size, structure, and responsibilities of the GLLU moving forward. We hope that MPD acts quickly to demonstrate a genuine commitment to community safety, and cooperates with concerned individuals and organizations to address its flawed GLLU restructuring program.

A D.C. police officer, Tuma says, responded with some hate-speech of his own—and a swift arrest. Second District Officer J. Culp, Tuma says, "charged 40-50 feet" toward him, "pushed him against a transformer box," arrested him, then told him to "shut up, faggot."

Tuma's arrest, the Blade reports, is currently being investigated on the orders of D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. Meanwhile, Culp may have picked the wrong group of gays to fuck with: Tuma and the two friends on the scene, Luke Platzer and Dave Stetson, are all attorneys. The exact reason for Tuma's arrest is still unclear. But while he initially agreed to pay a fine "as part of a 'post and forfeit' plea" which helped him avoid cell block time, he now says he intends to fight all charges in court:

[Tuma] said police took him to the Second District station at Connecticut and Idaho avenues, N.W., near the National Cathedral, where he was booked and released about four hours later. He said his release came after he agreed to pay a fine as part of a “post and forfeit” plea, which is an acknowledgement of possible guilt.

Tuma said he agreed to the post and forfeit plea after officers who processed his arrest told him he would be forced to remain in a holding cell before being presented before a magistrate in D.C. Superior Court had he pleaded not guilty to the charge.

He said he had a longstanding commitment that morning and did not want to miss it by having to appear in court. Tuma said he plans to exercise his right to withdraw the post and forfeit the plea at a later date and fully contest the charge in court.

Tuma's lawyer friends, too, are committed to fighting the charge:

D.C. attorney Luke Platzer, one of Tuma’s two friends to witness the arrest, said he and a second friend, attorney Dave Stetson, were approached by a D.C. police sergeant shortly after police drove Tuma to the station to process his arrest. Platzer said the sergeant, whose last name is Geer, told them he observed Tuma attempting to “resist” arrest in a disorderly way and asked them if they would give a statement confirming his observation.

“We said, ‘No, we did not see that at all,’” Platzer told the Blade. “We thought he was trying to trick us into saying that there was physical resistance by Pepin to the arrest. That is not true.”

The deets:

Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Foundry United Methodist Church
5:00 – 6:00 pm Community discussion on public safety and anti-GLBT crime
6:00 – 7:00 pm DC Chief of Police Cathy Lanier joins the discussion

According to the press release, "Chief Lanier is expected to discuss the status of MPD's efforts to combat crimes in general and hate crimes in particular, as well as discuss her plan to staff the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit of the MPD."

January 16, 2009 — Mayor Fenty and Police Chief Lanier met with Chris Farris and Todd Metrokin, Co-Chairs of GLOV (Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence), along with Sgt. Brett Parson to discuss solutions to the problem of anti-GLBT violence in DC. Several points from the list of recommendations made to Mayor Fenty and Chief Lanier (see below) recieved immediate commitments.

The most notable commitment was the Mayor's agreement to comply with existing DC law requiring him to submit an annual hate crimes report to the the City Council Equally important, the Mayor agreed that measurable goals should be set to reduce ant-GLBT harassment in the DCPublic School system and to revisit previous proposals by SMYAL (the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League) on the subject. Both Mayor Fenty and Chief Lanier agreed to facilitate a meeting between GLOV and the new U.S. Attorney for DC, once that person is appointed, to discuss grievances regarding case management and policies.

"Mayor Fenty opened the meeting with a request for actionable suggestions on how the DC government could address the issue," said Farris, "but would not commit to making a public statement acknowledging and condemning the violence, although we pressed hard for that. To his credit, however, he invited us to continue to send concrete requests his adminstration can act on to him directly. Working with the police, prosecutors, the GLBT community, the schools, and our allies, most notably those who serve on DC's Anti-Bias Task Force, GLOV intends to act on the Mayor's invitation."

Chief Lanier was very receptive to GLOV's recommendations for her Department, offering to share the current mandatory online hate crimes training curriculum as well as sharing her innovative plan to expand the GLLU program by maintaining the central GLUU office but allowing gay and lesbian officers to serve as liasons within their own precincts, thus increasing the potential number of officers recognized under the GLLU while integrated throughout the MPD.

"I feel that Chief Lanier understands the issue and is truly interested in improving the performance of the MPD." said Metrokin. "And we assured both her and the Mayor that we are also doing our part
by re-educating our community on safety issues and encouraging reporting."

"The Chief has demonstrated in the past that she is a partner in our efforts to reduce anti-GLBT hate crimes, and today she re-confirmed that partnership," said Farris. "We are hopeful that today's meeting
with the Mayor is the beginning of an equally productive partnership."

—

GLOV offered Mayor Fenty the following recommendations to address anti-GLBT crime:

I. a strong public statement that recognizes the issue of anti-GBLT hate crimes in DC, condemns that violence in the harshest terms, and pledges all necessary city resources to fight it.

II. Compliance with existing law in submitting an annual report on hate crimes to the City Council

III. The following immediate commitments from the MPD:
a. Hate Crimes training for the entire police force, especially on reporting
b. Sensitivity training when dealing with GLBT victims
c. Staffing of the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU) to the level it was at the beginning of the Fenty Administration

IV. Support for the following:
a. Meeting with Chancellor Rhee of DCPS
b. Meeting with DCAG
c. Meeting with the newly-appointed United States Attorney for DC upon appointment
d. Faith communities outreach

V. For DCPS – measurable goals for decreasing incidents of anti-GLBT harassment and support for student awareness campaigns

VI. Publicly support the establishment of a Panel to address hate crimes against the GLBT community in DC with the mission of outlining the problem and recommending actions and solutions to address it. Panel should be on a short timeline and include, at a minimum, representatives from the following: the GLBT community, the Mayor's office, the MPD, the USAO (if possible), the AG's office, DCPS, and faith communities. The recommendations of the Panel should be made public.

When contacted, Mahl released a brief statement confirming that the incident occurred but declined to provide additional details.

“I’m a police officer assigned to the Third District substation,” he said. “I was the target of a hate bias incident. It was reported to MPD and they are conducting an investigation to the best that they know how.”

Police sources familiar with the incident said the graffiti referred to Mahl as a “fag” and made lewd references to sexual acts by Mahl and a female police sergeant who is also assigned to the Third District substation.

Spokesperson Traci Hughes said Police Chief Cathy Lanier called the act "cowardly," "disrespectful," and "reprehensible."