Recall proponents also point to one tweet from Charles as evidence that he “defunded” MPD. It’s important to have context here. In 2020, District residents overwhelmingly called for public safety responses broadened beyond just policing. More than 5,000 residents submitted testimony to the Council in support. The redirection in funds did not lay off officers. It came at a time when the District anticipated a staggering $600 million in cuts due to the pandemic — in fact, the Mayor reduced MPD’s budget by $44 million that year before the proposed budget even came to the Council. Charles redirected a small amount of funding to restore devastating cuts proposed for victims’ services — that’s funding for professionals who offer counseling, therapy, and legal representation, and to fund a new domestic violence shelter and violence prevention programs, a move with clear support from the public to put more dollars into expanding the District’s response to crime.

False. While MPD is down officers, it’s clearly part of a national hiring shortage affecting police departments nationwide — one the Police Executive Research Forum published an extensive report on last August. Last year, Boston’s Chief reported being down roughly 400 officers, with a force about half the size of ours. Notably, Boston also saw a reduction in homicides and shootings. Dallas, Texas is also struggling to hire.

Dating back to 2014, MPD’s own data shows more officers voluntarily left or retired in FY15 and FY16, which outpaced voluntary departures in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. While there has been a slight uptick in officers resigning since 2020, retirements are down. There hasn’t been a spike – it’s actually been mostly level. Hiring has simply not kept up.

Charles has a track record of supporting MPD hiring. When he first became Chair of the Council’s Judiciary Committee, he worked closely with MPD to navigate a different staffing crisis — a retirement bubble. He worked with MPD to create a law to keep senior officers on the force even when they were eligible to retire. He also approved funding to expand the cadet program from 15 to 150 cadets per year; these are young DC residents who earn college credits while working for MPD. During his time leading the Committee, he consistently focused on both strengthening MPD and improving community trust in police.

A big challenge our police face is hiring, and most people agree we need to have a force size that’s capable of responding to calls for service requiring officers. That’s why two years ago, Charles Allen worked with then-MPD Chief Contee to fund the region’s first and most generous hiring bonus for new officers, now at $25,000. Hiring is a challenge for nearly every police department nationwide. The Council has approved every budget sent from the Mayor for officer hiring requested by MPD in three years, without any reductions.

Pre-pandemic, Charles recognized the need to improve our hiring package and approved recruitment and retention tools such as offering tuition incentives and housing assistance.

He also has grown MPD’s cadet program from 15 to 150 new cadets annually, creating a pipeline for DC residents to join MPD and serve the communities they know best. He also passed legislation to raise the age of the program to include young adults.

False. The Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2020 was passed unanimously by the Council, approved by the Mayor, and backed by President Biden. It largely falls in line with the federal George Floyd policing legislation – something the group of Hill staffers and lobbyists pushing this recall should know, as many of their bosses voted for that bill.

Every MPD Chief has wanted the ability to get rid of bad officers who were instead reinstated with full pay – that includes officers who have robbed others, driven drunk, and even committed sexual assault on the job. A lengthy and opaque disciplinary process made it nearly impossible to fire an officer for proven, and sometimes repeated, misconduct. This law strikes a better balance between accountability for abuse and protecting employee rights.

It is often referenced that MPD can’t engage in vehicular pursuits. That’s not true. But the Council did codify in law a stronger standard for when a chase is appropriate or not. In short, it must be in pursuit of someone suspected of a violent felony, and the officer has to have a reasonable understanding that it will not lead to nearby bystanders being harmed. This makes sense in an urban setting, and it follows MPD’s own General Order. The Council worked with MPD to update the law last summer. The aim is to strike a balance between the highly dangerous nature of high-speed pursuits for the surrounding community with the interest of making an arrest and getting a bad actor off the streets. The law gives MPD the flexibility it needs while protecting officers and the public.

Many states and cities passed similar police transparency and accountability laws and saw declines in crime in 2023.

Anyone who followed the congressional hysteria about the Revised Criminal Code Act knew this was a fact-free effort that was entirely a right-wing attack on the President and Democrats using our home as a vehicle. It was a best practices bill from an independent commission that had spent 15 years cleaning up DC’s sprawling and contradicting criminal laws, including making many penalties tougher. DC’s current criminal code (the one in place for the 2023 crime spike) is considered one of the worst in the United States based on its inconsistency, missing legal definitions, and lack of proportionality. It hasn’t been reformed in more than 100 years. President Biden and some Democrats caved to disinformation in vetoing the proposed bill, rather than taking a stand for the District, while knowing the entire time that the bill was being grossly misrepresented. So DC is still stuck with one of the worst criminal codes in the nation, and the crimes happening today are taking place with the current laws on the books.

That’s the disadvantage DC residents face — our local issues regularly get spun into national punching bags free of fact or respect for our residents and autonomy.

Before Charles was elected, the Council created a special commission to clean up our entire disorganized and messy criminal code, containing such absurd laws as making the riding of a horse over 8 miles per hour illegal. This commission included local and federal prosecutors, defense attorneys, and criminal law experts from local law schools. The Revised Criminal Code Act was their work product and was completed and submitted to the Council in 2021. It had a clear and consistent set of definitions, reflected increasing severity for crimes based on specific facts, and closed gaps in the law — particularly our gun laws (some of which were eventually included in Secure DC, a bill now before the Council).

When the bill was referred to his committee, Charles Allen held more than 30 hours of public hearings. He made many changes to reflect the concerns of the Mayor, MPD Police Chief Contee, US Attorney Matt Graves, and the Courts. Very little in the bill was out of line with what is currently in place in a majority of states, and many portions followed the Model Penal Code. Additionally, there was a three-year delay before it would have taken effect, pushing implementation to at least 2026 even if it had passed.

The bill passed the Council twice unanimously, and yet was vetoed by the Mayor with little warning despite her saying repeatedly she agreed with 95% of the bill. This veto was then overridden by the Council, and the bill was sent to Congress as all local laws are. It became the subject of obsession for Republican members of the House of Representatives who sought ways to make crime a national issue and grossly misrepresented the law for their own political agenda – despite many penalties in their own states being lower than those proposed. Ultimately, President Biden and many congressional Democrats caved to these baseless attacks, and the bill was overturned in Congress. No section or provision in the bill was ever implemented.

The 2023 crime spike that made DC an outlier from most of the country took place under the current code and our existing maximum penalties, some of the highest in the country above even so called “red states.” DC continues to have one of the most dysfunctional criminal codes in the 50 states.

False. As part of the proposed Revised Criminal Code Act, the independent commission recommended moving the offense of carjacking under the robbery statute, instead of keeping it as a standalone crime. Charles rejected that recommendation and maintained it as a stand-alone crime. It would have had a 24-year max penalty under the Revised Criminal Code.

The 2023 crime spike, including of carjacking offenses, took place under the current code’s 40-year+ max sentence.