On July 17, 2023, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela A. Smith made history as the District’s first Black female police chief. After taking on that role, she secured the D.C. Council’s approval, unveiled a strategic plan to decrease crime and improve public safety, promoted public safety legislation to residents, and stood on her Christian faith to make inroads with community members frustrated with violent crime and deteriorating values.
The Informer sat down with Smith on the one-year anniversary of her tenure at the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The 20-minute interview spawned material for future stories. For the time being, here’s a breakdown of crucial points that we covered with the chief.
- Crime Reduction
Data gathered by MPD shows that, as of July 17, the District experienced a 33% year-to-date reduction in violent crime and 15% reduction in property crime. Overall, crime has reduced by 18% since Smith entered her role.
During that time, MPD also unveiled the Real Time Crime Center and a fleet of drones.
Smith touted her homicide reduction plan as a key driver of the downward crime trend. She highlighted Washington Highlands and Anacostia, both in Southeast, along with the Northeast neighborhood of Rosedale as areas of focus. The department, she said, based their emphasis on that area on three-years of data.
MPD captains, and a bevy of federal and local agencies, dedicated to those areas engage residents and encourage them to collaborate in crime reduction, Smith told The Informer.
“We don’t need to be heavy handed,” Smith said. “It’s about police officers building relationships. I’m proud of the residents. They call me in the middle of the night [to tell me] people are outside. We haven’t had that. And having the Real Time Crime Center to get to those locations rather quickly.”
- Police Recruitment
Since the pandemic, police recruitment has been an issue that inspired condemnation of activists, and even legislation geared toward increasing the workforce.
Chief Smith told The Informer that the department made some headway this past year with a 30% reduction in officer attrition.
This past spring, the MPD workforce fell slightly when 21 officers couldn’t return due to infractions they incurred. Those infractions ranged from failure to report to duty to what Smith called “serious misconduct.”
The department, she said, has since been on its way to surpassing the 3,300 mark. Within the last month, 34 MPD personnel graduated from the cadet program, with at least another 14 to 17 scheduled to achieve a similar feat before the end of August. Ramping up those numbers, Smith said, will involve the launch of an in-person recruitment team and engagement with local universities.
In regard to university engagement, Smith told The Informer that she has her sights set on native Washingtonians.
“The majority of the cadets are Washingtonians and [in] the pipeline for becoming police officers. I want to get that number up to 150,” Smith said. “That means taking a look at what happens in our program to see how we’re leveraging communities to get young people. They get a chance to go to [University of the District of Columbia] for free, [earn] an associate’s [degree] and become a member…. and that’s a good thing for us.”
- Faith-Based Engagement
Chief Smith, an ordained Baptist minister, doesn’t shy away from her connection to a higher power. She credited her involvement in the church, under the guidance of her father and extended family, as a cloak of protection over her life.
As such, she expressed a desire for District youth to receive similar support.
“We got to get to a place to get the faith-based leaders back [in] the space,” Smith said. “Whatever you believe in, wherever your faith lies, we’ve got to make sure we’re driving out darkness out of our communities. When our pastors, clergy, and synagogue leaders show up, there’s a different level of respect.”
In June, Smith preached a sermon at Washington National Cathedral in observance of National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Her appearance counted among several instances over the course of a year where she engaged the community through faith, including at prayer vigils and faith walks.
All the while, Smith continues to organize more than 100 local faith leaders through her Faith Advisory Council. Those efforts, she noted, also involve working closely with the Mayor’s Office of Religious Affairs and connecting faith-based organizations with grant opportunities via the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants.
Such measures, she told The Informer, have culminated in programs of benefit to young people and their families. “That’s what they suggested to us — that they need to have their doors open late in the evening as an after-school program,” Smith said. “They want to see us present. We need to have that connection .. especially in our communities where I know our children can thrive.”
- Drug-Free Zones and Marijuana Shops
Chief Smith credited drug-free zones, among other initiatives, with the reduction in violent crime this year. Despite ongoing concerns about direct police community engagement and infringement on residents’ constitutional rights, Smith said that the push for this element of the Secure D.C. Omnibus Act came from District residents.
“We’ve been finding that people keep asking for it,” Smith said. “The mayor wanted one at a time, and I told her that we need to roll it out. It’s not [about] arresting… but telling people that ‘you can’t do this here… within a school zone. All people wanted was to have their community back, and not see hand-to-hand drug activity.”
However, as Smith so passionately explained to The Informer, the proliferation of marijuana shops could potentially thwart those efforts. While she noted that MPD often supports the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration in their investigation of criminal activity within those venues, marijuana shops circumvent what she called close-to-nonexistent regulations.
To that point, Smith commended D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) for her pushback against a marijuana vendor who wanted to set up shop in a Northwest community.
“We have marijuana shops all over the place,” Smith said. “If we have a drug problem, then we have to do something about these shops. Who thought it was a good idea to have all of these marijuana shops? That’s the problem.”
