Two Chilling stories of police incompetence

MPD cops in Adams Morgan
Originally uploaded by nillazil.

This was posted to the Columbia Heights yahoogroup by Colleen Leyrer, and I thought the content is serious and deserves wider readership. These are serious issues of failure to execute. What is the problem here and why? How can this typical kind of experience be corrected?

Ms. Leyrer writes:

I am so outraged by recent police incompetence, I need to share these stories.

My cousin was jumped, in Adams Morgan, by three young men recently. They beat and robbed him, but did not have a gun or knife, thank God. He fought back and actually chased two of them to their car. (Perhaps not the smartest thing, but there it is.)

He called 911 and read the MD license plate tags to the dispatch as he tried to follow the car, on foot. He came across two police officers as the car disappeared, and told them what just happened.

They claimed they would call "dispatch" and told him to go back to his car. He explained he was on foot, and did not have a car. They told him to go stand somewhere, and he did what he was told, for 20 minutes.

They left, never came back, and he called 911 to see if anyone had been "dispatched. " He was told no. Then he went to the hospital, where he was tested/examined and stayed for 11 hours. He had internal bleeding, but nothing broken.

He has since called the police to see what happened as far as his first call to police. So far, there is no record of his call, despite the fact that 911 calls should be recorded. The police had the tags, for God's sake, and apparently someone screwed up royally. So, three violent criminals on the street who could easily be apprehended if not for police/dispatch screw up.

Ok, then there was the situation where I actually saw a man break into my neighbors house here in Columbia Heights. I called 911as it was happening, and explained how he was getting in. (He entered a window on the alley side and popped a screen to get in.)

My housemate waited out front to make sure the guy didn't try to walk out that way. I watched from inside the house. The police came to the front, and my housemate explained they should approach from the back, alley side. He was told someone was back there.

Anyway, we let the police run through our house as they guy was leaving from the alley side. He got away. OK, given the configuration of the alley, if an officer was standing right back there behind the house, this guy should not have gotten away. I give the police credit for at least trying in this instance, but I don't think they were really listening to us when we explained what was going on/the best way to try to apprehend the person.

Index Keywords: public-safety