A Fight Against Forced Retirement
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After 16 years with the D.C. police department, Officer Bruce E. Moyer is a veteran of the desk job, having spent virtually all of his career off the streets, not on them. As of last fall, he had been away from full duty far longer than any other officer employed at the time, according to police records.
Moyer had been on the force 18 months when he was injured riding a motorcycle off duty in 1991, leaving him with a pin, a plate and screws in his left hip and leg.
For the next 14 years, the department paid Moyer his full-time salary for partial duty, nearly all of it consisting of answering phones and performing other light tasks. Police officials tried to force Moyer to retire in 1995, but the retirement board ruled that he was providing useful service, and he continued for nearly a decade on limited duty.
A 2004 report on the case said Moyer could not run, climb stairs, walk more than a few blocks or sit for more than two hours. But last year, when the department again told him he could be forced to retire, Moyer wrote an e-mail to his Maryland congressman, saying that he could play hockey and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes and had ridden a bike 50 miles to celebrate turning 40.
"I am able to do more physically than most officers," he wrote, appealing for help in fighting the retirement.
He had his wife videotape him running around a track to bolster his claims.
Moyer, 41, declined to discuss his case through his attorney, James W. Pressler Jr. Police officials also would not comment.
Faced with the information that Moyer provided and testimony that the retirement board had gathered for its hearing, the board concluded that he was not disabled for police work and was entitled to his job. He returned to full duty in September 2005 and is paid a salary of $65,407, department records show.
Moyer is assigned to the 4th District in Northwest. But he is not on patrol there. He is back at a desk job, representing the District at a command center run by the U.S. Capitol Police.
-- Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz
