Editor’s Journal: A Lack of Respect

By Dottie Tiejun Li

I don’t question D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s original decision to close the under-utilized Chinatown sub-station that was home to the force’s Asian Liaison Unit. Big-city policing has evolved since the unit was formed in 1996, and the Chief has helped create progress. She has incorporated the latest technologies so her officers can spend their time on the streets, not behind desks. Community policing works. And it works in Chinatown, even as the members of the special Asian unit spend much of their time in other neighborhoods.

It’s the ASIAN Liaison Unit, not the Chinatown Liaison Unit. I get that.

But I do not get the way the police went about implementing the decision. They disregarded leaders of the Asian American community, notably the Chinatown business owners, civic leaders and residents, many of them elderly, who diligently worked to establish the unit’s presence there in 1996 and view it as a source of community pride. The community has been treated with a stunning lack of respect. Information has been withheld, and some of what was released strains credulity.

There’s confusion over everything, beginning with when the process started. Chief Lanier said at the December 5 community meeting in Chinatown that she first heard from Gallery Place general manager Paula McDermott “three weeks ago,” asking if MPD would consider giving up the H Street space. But Gallery Place says the negotiations began in mid-September, and their initial email trail is dated September 12, two months earlier than the Chief contends.

The timing matters because a main community complaint is that Chief Lanier knew for a long time the closing was planned and chose not to either consult or inform the Asian community.

The apparent secrecy bothers people. The Chief contends there was no secrecy, and MPD spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump wrote, in response to my question, that the Chief “directed Assistant Chief Diane Groomes to have Asian Liaison Unit members make notifications. This was a verbal communication.” Such an order was apparently not carried out effectively, if at all, as we could not find civic leaders in Chinatown who got the information from members of the unit.

Shockingly, no one in the police chain of command told Asian Fortune about the closing, even as we worked with them on a feature story for the December edition called Life on the Streets with the Asian Liaison Unit: not MPD public information officer Paul Metcalf, whose job is to give out information for the Chief; not Cpt. Edward Delgado, who oversees all of MPD’s special liaison units; not Sgt. Kenny Temsupasiri, ALU leader, whom we shadowed on his job in late November; and not another ALU officer present that day.

I learned of the closing moments after leaving Sgt. Temsupasiri. A community leader, who had recently learned the unit was being uprooted from an unofficial source, told me. I was appalled to learn the police withheld that crucial information from us.

When I asked Chief Lanier why the information she says she ordered released never made it to the Chinatown community, she offered this bizarre response regarding the unit: “The problem is, they’re trying to serve a community that speaks multiple languages. It doesn’t go out to everybody equally at the same time.”

What?

Yes, each ALU officer is fluent in at least one Asian language, but they all speak English. (I could have been told in Mandarin.) Because the AAPI population is so diverse, most of their verbal communication with citizens is conducted in English, not the many native languages. The Chief’s explanation does not work. And it does not explain why MPD painstakingly avoided telling the area’s primary Asian American medium something the Chief says she ordered publicized.

Leaving the December 5 meeting, I asked Sgt. Temsupasiri why he never said anything. He sheepishly responded, “Because I was not authorized.” Spokesperson Crump emailed this cryptic response to that: “Sgt. Temsupasiri was never told to withhold information.” OK. But that blurs whether or not he was authorized to pro-actively give out that information. I’m not critical of Sgt. Temsupasiri, who seems to be a dedicated public servant and an honorable man. I am certain he does what he believes is his duty.

So what’s going on here? An evil plot to thwart the Asian American community? No, of course not. The Chief and her officers are too busy for that, protecting us and making Washington, D.C. safer. I applaud those efforts.

It’s likely Chief Lanier was presented with a situation, analyzed it quickly with professional detachment, and made a decision based on her experience and knowledge of how best to use the resources at her command. Then I imagine she mentally filed it away as “done.”

She accomplished the “to protect” part of her job, but overlooked the “to serve” part. She forgot about the business people in Chinatown who remember the bad old days and fear their return. She forgot about the elderly Chinese residents still living there, the folks comforted by a permanent physical presence. And she neglected civic leaders struggling to maintain Chinatown’s cultural identity who can’t bear losing another community feature. She forgot to explain that police protection is not going away, even if the office closes, and to ask if they have ideas about how to go forward in Chinatown.

It was only when this newspaper started asking questions and broke the story online, and later in print, that MPD suddenly decided a public hearing was required. There, the Chief reversed her decision about closing the office. She went further, promising to look into hiring somebody to help staff the currently non-existent station. Was this a reasoned switch based on policing needs, or a bow to public pressure, a tacit admission that a community was insulted and amends must be made?

Another community meeting is scheduled for January 7. It’s should be interesting. We’ll see you online at www.AsianFortune.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AsianFortune for that one.