Life on the Streets With the Asian Liaison Unit

By Dottie Tiejun Li

D.C. police Sgt. Kenny Temsupasiri steps out onto H Street, NW. It’s mid-morning, a partly sunny day in Chinatown, and the sidewalks are full of people. The rich smells of Chinese cooking are beginning to waft from the omnipresent restaurants. He’s planning to cross over to Sixth Street to visit a store which has been robbed three times in the past, twice during daylight hours, to check in and offer some tips before the annual holiday bump in crime gets underway. But before he can walk more than a dozen feet from the Metropolitan Police substation at 616 H Street that’s long been home base for the city’s Asian Liaison Unit, there’s a problem.

A car bearing Arizona license plates has stalled at the corner of 6th and H. The intersection, in the shadow of the ornate Chinatown Gate, is already clogged with road construction, and traffic flow is imperiled. Before the policeman can get to the vehicle, the driver, his wife, and their pre-teen daughter pile out. They are Chinese, and the man, who speaks broken English, pops open the hood and looks about helplessly. As he strides over to the car, the family begins peppering Sgt. Temsupasiri with questions, but he is focused on one immediate goal: get the car out of the intersection.

Within moments, he is joined by a fellow officer and they start pushing the car away from the intersection. The sergeant, fluent in Thai, asks the family if they would like someone to help with Mandarin language. A call to a tow truck is arranged, the family calms down, and Sgt. Temsupasiri continues on his way.

It is Monday, November 26. All is normal in Chinatown.

At the shop a few minutes later, the policeman discusses ways of spotting suspicious characters and actions, and he offers suggestions for enhancing security with New Da Hsin store employee Zhao Yu Lin. Despite the subject matter, it’s a warm and friendly encounter, smiles all around. The officer is well-known in the neighborhood, part of the community.

That task accomplished, he is soon patrolling a grim-looking alley, the backside of the festive restaurants and shops which attract tourists and locals alike. Uh oh. He identifies a danger spot. No, two of them: open rear restaurant doors. He enters one, and starts warning the employees. It seems Asian kitchen workers citywide often prop open rear doors to help ventilate hot kitchens. The police know this makes them vulnerable. So do the bad guys, who see the opportunity to get inside and walk out with cash.

“That’s always been an issue with Asian merchants,” the sergeant explains. “They keep a lot of cash in their businesses, and we’re always telling them not to do that, you need to deposit your money quickly, not every week or every two or three weeks. They don’t think bad things will happen to them, but sometimes it does.”

Captain Edward DelGado, who oversees all of the city’s special police liaison units, recalls an Asian restaurateur who lost $100,000 cash in a daring daylight robbery a few years back. “He uses an armored truck service now,” he said. “But we try to have the unit deal with things like that. We take care of a lot of the smaller stuff so they don’t become big issues.” So, the five members of the Asian Liaison Unit, and their leader, Sgt. Temsupasiri, visit crime-afflicted areas across the city, checking the back doors of Asian restaurants and carry-out shops, among their other duties.

Crime prevention, community liaison work, assistance for crime victims, and investigation follow-ups with D.C.’s increasingly diverse Asian-American community: it’s a different mission than was the case when the unit was formed in 1996. Back then, Chinatown was viewed as crime-ridden and dangerous, nearby areas were havens for heavy drinking, prostitution and drugs. Citywide violence against Asian shop owners was rampant. Now, Chinatown has been largely cleaned up, encroaching development attracts customers for the remaining restaurants and stores, crime is down, and the city-wide wave of anti-Asian violence has subsided.

In 1996, there were 12 officers on the unit operating in Chinatown. Now there are five, plus the sergeant, all but one an Asian American. Fluent in Asian languages, they operate in all sectors of the city, aided by specially trained “affiliate officers” in each of the seven police districts. The unit has adapted.

“We deal with regular street crime,” DelGado explained. “If there’s something like a gambling establishment or a crime like that, we refer it over to detectives to investigate. We assist in cases like that, but we are not the lead investigating body.”

Back in Chinatown, Sgt. Temsupasiri leaves the alley. He’s pleased to see traffic flowing relatively smoothly through the 6th and H intersection; the broken-down car from Arizona has already been towed away to a repair shop. He observes the pedestrians, commenting that street crime rises in December because many people are carrying cash to purchase gifts, and are especially vulnerable as they leave stores laden with merchandise.

He pauses to reflect on his 23 years on the D.C. force. Born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand, the 49-year-old immigrated to America in 1979. He started as a patrol officer, and took command of the Asian Liaison Unit in 2001. Married, with two children, he clearly relishes direct contact with members of the AAPI community. Sgt. Temsupasiri is also proud, he says, that the force has become substantially more diverse over the years, now boasting “many Asian officers and detectives, and officers who are certified in Asian language.”

Chinatown crime has gone down during his tenure, he notes, with most of it now confined to shoplifting, theft, robbery, the “crimes of opportunity,” as he calls them. But he is vigilant now, anticipating the shopping season surge in theft. As we talk, he eyes the nearby Metro Station, explaining that it provides an easy escape after a quick crime. But he doesn’t talk about uprooting the unit’s headquarters, saying only, “Overall, there are more officers now patrolling Chinatown on foot than before.”

Now it’s Wednesday, November 28. Chinatown is not so normal now.

Word has leaked out that Police Chief Cathy Lanier is pulling the Asian Liaison Unit’s office out of Chinatown. Asian Fortune is posting the story online. Business leaders and shop owners are upset, angry. They say they feel betrayed, and question why the change was planned in secret, with no community involvement. Rumors are rampant that Chief Lanier is trying to abolish the Asian Liaison Unit. The city’s politicians are warily circling the issue, gauging all the angles and issuing a flurry of releases and statements. Councilmember Jack Evans, who represents the area, talks of planning a big meeting, but he’s careful on this day, at least, not to stake out a hard position. Chief Lanier, who originally agreed to talk about the move, retreats under cover of a terse written statement. Developer Herb Miller’s company, which had provided space for the substation free of rent, does the same.

A visitor to the substation will find the glass doors locked. But they have often been locked lately. Two pieces of paper are taped at eye level, one in English and the other in Chinese, advising the reader to “call 911” if there is a problem, because the officers of the Asian Liaison Unit are “handling the assignment and patrolling on the street citywide.”

And while the unit itself is smaller, their reach has been extended throughout the Department, says Capt. DelGado, who credits Chief Lanier’s “affiliate program.”

“Officers undergo special training with the Liaison division, including how to deal with language and cultural issues. Those officers are assigned to work with the unit for 30 days, where they learn to handle outreach and learn about the community at the street level. Then they bring that back to their patrol districts to integrate it into their work, or work with us when needed,” he said. Each of the seven districts has an Asian presence now, he added.

There are several “hot spots” the Asian unit is concentrating on currently. One is a stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, from the 300 block to the 1200 block. A spate of robberies, particularly involving Asian-owned businesses, has caused this focus. Liaison Unit officers are working door-to-door, advising the business owners about security. Another area of concern for the unit currently is the market area in the 12-and13-hundred blocks of 4th and 5th Streets in Northeast, where there is an unusually high concentration of Asian-owned businesses, many vulnerable to quick robberies.

Always of concern is the plight of the Chinese food carryout delivery person. Capt. DelGado says that because many of them work very long hours, it’s not all that unusual for a delivery driver to be carrying $800 to $1,000 in cash, and criminals know that. The police are taking pre-emptive action now, so you might experience a change in the way your food order is delivered, he said.

“We have Chinese food delivery people delivering food often late at night to different neighborhoods. They carry a lot of cash, so members of the Asian Liaison Unit and some of our affiliate officers have been sent out to talk to the Chinese carryout businesses to warn them about the danger areas, not to carry so much cash. And we tell them not to go into buildings, but to make the customer come outside, where it’s safer for the delivery person. Inside, a knife or a gun can quickly come out,” he said.

Regardless of how the controversy over the substation is handled, or where the officers’ desks might end up, it is clear the Asian Liaison Unit has not only a proud history, but a continuing, crucial mission in the nation’s capital.