At a Georgetown Church, a Display Of Repentance

Police Commander Asks Pardon for Racial Remark

D.C. police Inspector Andy Solberg, with daughter Suzi, right, speaks with Etta J. Hatton, left, Frances W. Abrams and Beulah Lax at First Baptist Church, Georgetown. "I was wrong," he told church members. (By James A. Parcell -- The Washington Post)

D.C. police Inspector Andy Solberg was contrite, humble and genial as he stood at a church pulpit yesterday with a mental list of points he wanted to make.

"The first is that I was wrong. Flat out. No excuses," the acting commander of the 2nd Police District said. "Next, I'm sorry. I don't think that one needs an explanation. I'm sorry."

For Solberg, it was yet another public apology for a racially insensitive remark he made July 10 at a community meeting in Georgetown. After a rare homicide in the neighborhood, while urging people to report suspicious activity, Solberg had said, "This is not a racial thing to say that black people are unusual in Georgetown. This is a fact of life."

He has been trying to repair the damage ever since. Yesterday, dressed in uniform, he spoke after services to about 60 parishioners at First Baptist Church, Georgetown, one of the District's oldest black churches.

Solberg's appearance was prompted by a phone conversation with Charles White, 52, a member of the church. In an interview, White said he could not allow Solberg's comments to slide.

"At any given time, we can be here for prayer service, choir rehearsal. We could be on the corner. Are people going to call the police on us?" said White, who has been attending the church all his life but lives in Capitol Hill.

Introducing Solberg, the church's interim pastor, the Rev. I. Benni Singleton, said: "Unfortunately, crime, personalities and circumstances and wording of questionable choices of a sensitive nature" created the controversy.

Solberg said he has been talking to friends and fellow officers about the comments that landed him in trouble. A day after the remarks, Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey temporarily reassigned him to the school security division. Ramsey returned Solberg to the 2nd District last week after the commander got a written reprimand.

A 19-year member of the force, Solberg said yesterday that he was hurt that he had offended his friends. "When a friend of yours tells you that remarks that you made in public are going to make it harder for his boys to grow up, that's a very personal thing. That's very hard to hear," he said.

Solberg, a former D.C. public school teacher whose children attend a predominantly black public school, brought his 16-year-old daughter, Suzi, with him to the church. She sat in a back pew with her friend Alycia Fields, 17, who is African American.

The stately church, painted brick red, is at Dumbarton and 27th streets NW where, over the decades, church members watched African Americans get pushed out of Georgetown through gentrification.

"We've been on this corner for 144 years, and I've been here for 50," said Rosilyn King, 57. "I know that I feel like the neighbors don't want us here. They would in a New York minute buy this property and turn it into a condo."