Ramsey announced his plan to the District’s police officers and civilian employees Sept. 9 during a series of meetings at DAR Constitution Hall.

Ramsey’s plan will eliminate the current bureau system and replace it with a geographically based structure.

Under the current system, the Metropolitan Police Department is divided into patrol service, support service, technical service and human resources bureaus. A call to 911 could likely be passed to three of those bureaus before the case could be closed.

The reorganization will decentralize many of the departments and send uniformed officers, detectives and investigators into the seven police districts and the smaller patrol service areas (PSAs) into which they are divided.

"You’re going to see more officers on the street across the board," Ramsey said.

Ramsey said the department is currently working on new staffing plans that will analyze both the personnel in the PSAs and the crimes being committed in order to adequately staff the PSAs.

Ramsey said the new staffing plan will take the workload into account so the PSAs can be staffed according to the number and type of crimes committed.

The current PSA structure allows for 14 to 16 officers per PSA, but some officers have complained that number ignores the fact that many PSAs need more officers to handle the workload.

Ramsey said he would not know how many more officers would be assigned to the various police districts and PSAs until the report is completed.

The chief said the department will re-deploy officers to those areas of the city where they are most needed. Areas such as the sixth and seventh districts, which experience more violent crimes than the other districts, will be assigned detectives and investigators who specialize in violent crime, he said.

The new plan will divide the city into three Regional Operations Commands (ROCs) — north, central and east. The second and fourth police districts comprise the north ROC, the first, third and fifth police districts will be the central ROC, and the east ROC will be the sixth and seventh districts.

Each ROC will include a youth crimes investigation unit, a crime analysis unit and an executive officer who will serve as the liaison to the rest of the organizations.

The plan will also create "full-service" police districts — that is, districts with investigators and detectives, crime prevention officers, traffic officers and officers assigned to "focused missions" such as prostitution and new customer service personnel.

Ramsey told the men and women under his command the new structure will provide more accountability and create an atmosphere of teamwork in the police department.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is our responsibility to create neighborhoods that are safe, that are secure and where you can raise a family," Ramsey told members of his department who assembled for the first of the series of briefings on the reorganization. "That’s why we’re here, that’s what we’re all about as police."

An assistant police chief will head up each new ROC. Ramsey stressed his reorganization will not redraw the police district or PSA boundaries.

In addition to creating the ROCs and decentralizing many departments, Ramsey said he also intends to streamline the business side of the department by consolidating administrative and technical functions. An assistant chief will oversee the delivery of human, business, training and operational support services of this new command.

A new special services group is also being created that will oversee special operations and investigations such as the Emergency Response Teams, special events and major narcotics investigations.

Despite reports to the contrary, Ramsey said the restructuring is unique to Washington and not copied from anything in Chicago, where he was an assistant police chief.

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator