Police Disability

At a time when the D.C. police department struggles to keep enough officers on the street, more than 4 percent of the city's nearly 3,800 officers are unavailable for full duty.

Their disability claims, often for conditions unrelated to work, have cost the city millions in salaries, medical care and disability payments and an unknown toll in crime.

Washington Post staff writers Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz were online Thursday, Oct. 5 to discuss the D.C. police department's disability policy.

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Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Hello everybody. Sari and I are here and we welcome your questions.

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Alexandria VA: Chief Ramsey's comments made it appear that he had no idea this was going on, which I think is a bigger problem than if it was happening and he was doing nothing about it. And Camille Senn's chutzpah was revolting. Did she have any concept of a work ethic? Ugh. This whole thing defines why DC can't shake the Marion Barry image.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: The Chief was aware and in fact worked to get legislation with Councilmember Kathy Patterson that sets new time tables for officers to return w/n 172 days of an injury or else be taken to the retirement board. The numbers have come down but as we note you can't recover lost man-hours and the crime emergency demonstrates it's a struggle to keep patrols on the street.

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Alexandria, Va: I read that Ramsey says "Shame on us" regarding not having enough officers on the street, but what does he say about paying officers big money for doing nothing?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: As we noted above, the chief recognized a serious problem and moved on it. But the story also notes that there are officers who returned only after being threatened with retirement and they remain on the payroll.

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Springfield, Va.: Did you have any problems gaining access to the information you used during your research?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: We did. We filed several Freedom of Information requests and were able to get some records redacted from the dept but we had to gather many more on our own. And the retirement hearings are closed proceedings and that board declined to release even dockets of whose hearing was scheduled.

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Washington, D.C.: Great article. Sounds like Ramsey has already hit the airwaves with some damage control spin, saying that you tarred all DC police with the same brush. I hope this article gets wide distribution and prompts our lawmakers (looking at you Mayor-to-be Fenty!) to crack down on yet another instance of inefficiency in DC government.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Thank you. We actually took pains to note that most officers do this the right way and come back on the job after recovering. And as the story notes we had officers say they resented colleagues who took advantage and are paid but not working.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Coming from the private sector those sick leave policies seems pretty sweet.

Is there any hard evidence that police work is so much more dangerous or stressful to justify these very generous leave policies?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Certainly it's a dangerous job but the DC benefit is unheard of in private and public jobs, as we wrote.

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Chicago, Ill.: How long must an injured on-duty officer be off until duty disability is considered?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: I'm a little unclear what you're asking but if you mean is there a deadline for returning to work or being retried as disabled the answer is 172 work day w/in a 2-year period.

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Sterling, Va.: Can the mayor-elect fix this and other systemic problems with the DCPD? It seems that the department is a laughing-stock that closely resembles other poorly-run police departments--LA and NO--that have become national embarrassments.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: We think that's an extreme characterization. It remains to be seen how the mayor-elect addresses the issue. The new law does have a loophole because it sets a cap per injury not as an absolute maximum so the clock can be reset if an officer has a succession of different injuries. And even with the new law, the full pay no-taxes on sick leave remains.

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Petworth D.C.: Thank you for your research and story. It should come as no surprise to anyone. In its light, how can anyone call for massive hirings of more of these people? No wonder morale is so low. How could the remaining staff want to work when they know that other employees are sitting at home on full salaries? Actually, where can I apply?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Thanks. There is a burden on the officers who take the calls and fill in the shifts and can't get the days off they want because of absent colleagues.

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BDTLRVA: It seems to me that an officer that claims disability and then takes a job as a police officer in another state isn't just greedy or manipulative - it appears to be (or should be) criminal. Was that individual charged with a crime?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: No, it wasn't prosecuted. And in fact the U.S. Attorney's office routinely declines to criminally prosecute such cases saying they're reluctant to criminalize what they consider a personnel and management issue.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Do you think this problem is more or less prevalent in D.C. than in other major metropolitan areas? It seems the D.C. dept. is in trouble consistently.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Baltimore has fewer officers off than D..C and got its numbers down faster than has occurred here. But city to city comparisons are hard given varying state laws, union contracts etc.

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Better candidates?: Reading the individual cases presented in your story I couldn't help but wonder what made these people think they could hack it in such a physically and psychologically demanding field in the first place. Has the DCPD tightened its recruitment standards at all?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: The department screens job candidates and they look for resiliency and the ability to deal with the stresses officers face. What our story showed was that common workplace issues --arguments with supervisors or shift changes--were being used to justify a medical claim. Tighter stress rules were meant to clamp down on that.

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Wellington, NV: Because these cases involve medical information, the Chief and the Department have to be careful in discussing them. Chief Ramsey, through Ast/Chief Cockett and Ms. Haines-Walton, tackled a problem and they were fought tooth and nail by the union in hearings, arbitration and Superior Court. Because of these tactics from the union it is a very slow process to correct the process.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: It is a slow process. The union has gone to arbitration and won over the new stress protocols, a decision the department is appealing. So both sides have gone at each other.

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Fraud isn't a crime?: How can the prosecutors consider this to be a "personnel and management" issue, and not fraud? If I were on a jury with one of these cases, I'd convict in a heartbeat. Seems like a slam-dunk.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Police officials agree with you and in some cases recommended officers be prosecuted but the cases weren't taken up by the U.S. Attorney's office.

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Washington, D.C.: Abuse should never be tolerated. But, at the same time, shouldn't we also recognize that officers who are hurt on the job deserve the benefits they get? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...

Obviously there is a way to go to clean up the abuse of the disability leave. Do you feel that the police department has been working to turn this around? And how much of this was caused by the mass hirings they had about 15 years ago when they lowered their standards for applicants who they wouldn't even glance at today?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Certainly injured and ill officers should be taken care of and we aren't advocating stripping benefits. What our story does point out is the question of how long the department keeps on an officer --not injured in a traumatic event--and ties up an officer's position that could be used for patrol or another pressing need.

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Washington, D.C.: Great story, but I am honestly confused on why a question about Ms. Senn's work attire -- "Do you have any other clothing that you can wear?"-- was considered a "verbal assault." Is there some reason that ordinary dress codes that those of us in the outside world have to abide by are a stress-inducer in the D..C police dept?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: You posed the same question the department and retirement board did. To Officer Senn, however, the remarks were harassment and retaliation over the breakup of a romance with a supervisor.

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Upper Marlboro, Md.: What about the police officers who are injured on the job and want to go back to work? The police department forces them to retire since they are unable to go back to working on the street and they do not have desk jobs for them. Some are not 100 percent disabled so they don't receive a full disability pension which forces them to find another job to supplement their income. A cap is placed on the salary they can earn at another job. If they earn too much, the D.C. government can reduce their disability pension. How is this fair to those officers who were truly physically injured in the line of duty protecting D.C. residents?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: The new rules allow the Chief to make exceptions in individual cases but the point of the law and rules on what officers must be capable of doing is intended to move officers off the force if they cannot work as a police officer.

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Lanham, Md.: Believe me, this is just the tip of what is a rather large iceberg in the D.C. government workforce.

After working as a public sector HR professional for over 20 years, I took a position with a D.C. government agency about 5 years ago and was absolutely astounded at how employees out and out abused the system. The breadth and depth of people who are on paid leave or working in light-duty positions (for years -- not months)is simply unbelievable.

And managers, no matter how well meaning, are powerless to do anything about it. Believe me, there is a cottage industry of union reps, attorneys, arbitrators, and mediators that make millions from the D.C. budget by suing or threatening to sue D.C. government.

Maybe Mayor-Elect Fenty's new business-like management style will make a difference, but I doubt it. This is an entrenched part of the culture. And, he would be the first mayor to decide that it takes too much time, energy and political capital to take on that beast.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Thanks for the comment. We're not in a position to judge what does or doesn't go on in other departments, but you are raising an issue that likely will come up for the new administration.

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Washington, D.C.: I heard the union leader on Washington Post radio standing up for an officer who had been threatened at gunpoint, but was not allowed leave because the incident happened off duty. Your prior poster's comments that the union is somehow hampering the process of fairness seems unjustified. I'd like to ask why the Post, and the posters here, seem so bent on focusing on the few bad examples, and pretending that the story is balanced simply because it also mentions that sometimes leave is warranted. Isn't the real story what the other 3000 officers are doing to improve the city? Why can't we, for once, have a positive story about the good police and the hard work so many of them do in very violent conditions?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Thank you for the comment. Stories about the solid work done by the D.C. police department --arrests, cases closed--are routinely in the paper. But we also have to ask the hard questions particularly in processes that are closed off to public review.

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Washington, D.C.: You mentioned in the article that ending a relationship with a supervisor was cited as a cause for stress. Does the department not prohibit romantic involvement between supervisors and the people they supervise? If not, are any such rules being considered as a way to reduce this type of disability claim?

Mary Pat Flaherty: A report from internal affairs at the time of the incident noted that there was no rule against fraternizing.

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Washington, D.C.: Do you have a racial and/or gender breakdown?

Mary Pat Flaherty: No. Why would that even be relevant?

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Washington, D.C.: After reflecting on your story, I take it that you concluded that Chief Ramsey has been working to curb the false (or overly long) disability claims but that his hands are somewhat tied by the stickiness of medical privacy and the union. Perhaps the way to get officers back on duty is for you to run a story per day profiling each of the officers who are abusing the system in the hopes that they will be publicly shamed into going back to work.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: We've already heard offline from officers who were taken aback by some of the details in cases of their colleagues who were earning their salaries but off for months and even years.

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Stanton Park: Meaning no disrespect to the police officer that wanted leave after being threatened (off-duty) with a gun, but those of us that have been the victims of gun violence in D.C. don't get leave time from our employers. I was held up at gunpoint in D.C. a few years back. Did my employer offer me leave time? No. Did I expect it? No. Was I upset by the incident? Of course. Did I feel my stress meant I could no longer do my job? Of course not.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Interesting observation. Thank you. And sorry about such a frightening experience.

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Washington, D.C.: Mary Pat, are you going to have a follow up article to respond to some of the issues, and responses, that have been raised in this article?

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: The Washington Post certainly will stay on top of this and other issues in the police department.

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Southern Maryland: Today's story doesn't mention the female officers who get light duty during pregnancy and collect their full salary. I worked at the MPDC in a support staff position several years ago. It was not unusual for the female officers to have several pregnancies and get assigned to an indoor desk job, sleep at the desks, "network" (meaning coffee breaks, smoke breaks, chatting on personal calls all day long) while getting full salary and laughing about it. I worked with one female officer who had 3 kids in 5 years. Her time in a patrol car or on the street was almost nil while collecting her full officer salary. We also had officers on 'light duty' playing football, jogging, fishing, while being too "sick" to work. It's a scandal and the ranking officials let it continue.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: There are specific allowances for pregnant officers for the obvious reasons. I'd be curious though whether you flagged the other behaviors you said occurred--playing football etc.--to officials to give them a chance to do something about it.

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Wellington, NV: The good officers in the Department pay large sums to the union in the form of dues. These monies are used to keep members on the Department that the good officers do not want to be in the same car with. Keeping the marginal officers on the job has grown into a cottage industry financed by the good officers that are out doing the work.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Thanks for the comment.

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Stanton Park, D.C.: This is a sad story, but not surprising.

About three weeks ago there was a "sobriety checkpoint" set up on Stanton Park, 4th and Mass Ave. NE. I sat and watched for about an hour and a half. There was not a single car stopped. In fact, the cops didn't even really look at traffic. Instead, they chatted amongst themselves.

The stunning part: this "checkpoint" took 13 cop cars and about 20 cops.

Who was guarding the neighborhood while these 13 cop cars took an hours-long gossip break?

I've talked to a couple of cops who say most likely it was an "overtime opportunity," whether requested or not.

Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: It's hard to know if this was a special detail that didn't draw from the regular shifts but if your theory that it was an overtime opportunity is right I'm certain you'd find other officers who would be offended by that behavior too.

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Mary Pat Flaherty and Sari Horwitz: Sorry we could not get to everyone but thank you for the questions. If you would like to email us individually, there are links on our bylines on the stories. Feel free to use them. --Mary Pat and Sari

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