Thwarted and frustrated, D.C.'s respected police chief joins the exodus from his force.
He quits after only two years.
Robert Contee is Washington D.C.’s police chief. He’s widely respected — by the police force from whose ranks he rose, by the liberal mayor who appointed him, and even by the far-left city council.
But two years after becoming chief, Contee is resigning. He’ll join the large number of D.C. cops who have left the force, and for basically the same reason — the futility of policing Washington, D.C. with a beleaguered force and courts that refuse to keep criminals off the street.
Despite the esteem in which Contee is held, his tenure as chief cannot be considered a success. This year, killings are up 20 percent compared with the same time in 2022 — a year when the city surpassed 200 homicides for only the second time in almost two decades. Violent crime is up 7 percent and property crime up 29 percent.
According to this source, during the first four months of 2021, there were 15 incidents in which young people became victims of gun violence. In 2022, the number rose to 19. So far this year, there have been 32 such incidents.
Indeed, Contee probably will best be remembered for appearing at scenes where kids were murdered and making emotional statements deploring the violence.
This is not to suggest that Contee is to blame for the surging crime rate. He’s been saddled with a demoralized, understaffed police force. The force is currently at a half-century low in manpower. And with officers leaving faster than they can replaced. Contee says he expects the size of the force to keep declining.
Last month, he told the city counsel:
Absent significant shifts in national employment levels, the environment for law enforcement, or the interest of younger generations in long-term government careers, MPD staffing may not recover for more than a decade.
(Emphasis added)
The “environment for law enforcement” is, of course, a nice way of referring to the impact of the left’s vilification of police officers and calls for defunding the police and replacing officers with “violence interrupters.”
Contee has also railed against the D.C. criminal justice system, and with good cause. Recently, he noted that the average homicide suspect in D.C. has been arrested 11 previous times before killing someone. Like much of America, D.C. has an under-incarceration problem.
As noted, Contee receives praise from D.C.’s left-wing city council. Even the council’s biggest nutjob — Trayon White — calls Contee a “solid leader” who will be “hard to replace.”
But the city counsel has done all it can to thwart Contee’s policing mission. It passed a soft-on-crime criminal code that, fortunately, Congress blocked. It also passed so-called police accountability legislation that, among other things, strips police officers of their right to arbitration and gives an expanded civilian police board unfettered access to police records.
Contee opposes portions of this legislation, but Congress is unlikely to block it. And if Congress does block it, Joe Biden is on record saying he will veto Congress’ action.
No wonder Contee wants out of what he once considered his dream job.
Where will he go? Not to another big city police chief job, though there are other cities interested in hiring him. Law enforcement has broken down in most big cities. Contee would be as thwarted and as frustrated in one big city as another.
So instead, Contee will move to the FBI, as an assistant director of it Office of Partner Engagement. It’s a cushy landing spot, and no one should blame him for grabbing it.
Contee grew up in a D.C. housing project. He says that, as a 12-year-old, he kept a BB gun in his bed after burglars ransacked his sleeping family’s apartment. This would have been in the early 1980s, before proactive policing and stiff criminal sentences slashed the crime rate.
But now, with policing in steep decline and violent criminals being freed to terrorize poor neighborhoods, up-and-coming D.C. 12 year-olds might well be inclined to follow the example of 12 year-old Robert Contee.