A man was still firing bullets at police officers when the mayor called D.C. Police Chief Pamela A. Smith.
Muriel E. Bowser, the District’s mayor, told her chief that it was time to let the city know what was happening on this block of Hanna Place in Southeast Washington, where the man with the gun was barricaded with dozens of dogs inside of his home. Transparency was part of the job.
Less than eight months into her role as the city’s top law enforcement officer, Smith decided to push back.
“We’ve still got this person out here,” Smith told Bowser, the mayor recalled in an interview. “We are going to have to wait a little while.”
The disagreement, on Feb. 14 in the midst of a 13-hour standoff, reflected a shift in thinking atop the D.C. police department, which for nearly a generation had been helmed by leaders who rose up through the ranks and embraced public news conferences on high-profile incidents.
Advertisement
A self-described “pistol-packin’ preacher” who served for 24 years with the U.S. Park Police, Smith has sought to reshape public expectations for the role during her first year in office — and is still finding her footing.
Since she has taken over the department, violent crime in the District has fallen, mirroring a nationwide trend. Homicides are down roughly 25 percent, and robberies have plunged 39 percent compared to the same period in 2023, a year that ended with the most killings in a quarter-century.
Still, polls show that many District residents continue to feel unsafe. And some have questioned why Smith has been less outspoken than her predecessors.
“There were news conferences that affected the city, and she wasn’t there,” said Anthony Muhammad, chair of the 7th District’s citizens advisory council, a group that serves as a liaison between police and residents. “She’s still learning the community and how D.C. actually works.”
Advertisement
In one particularly high-profile case this year — the fatal shooting in May of a 3-year-old girl during a gun battle in Southeast Washington — a district commander, rather than Smith, went to the scene to brief reporters, frustrating some residents, who said it made them feel that crime in their community did not matter.
Smith in an interview said she has worked hard to keep the community at the heart of decision-making.
Over her first year, she won support from key political leaders and public safety officials, though at times frustrated her own staff. She has sternly told officers to spend more time out of their cars and has tweaked assignments so that they are focused on preventing robberies and patrolling higher-crime areas overnight. She has increased the frequency of crime briefings with her command staff from once a week to daily. She has also overseen the opening of a surveillance monitoring center that police say has helped them make quicker arrests. Her perspective, she said, is that her job is to train her staff to respond to crime so that she can focus on structural changes, such as how and when officers are deployed.
Advertisement
In more than a dozen interviews with elected officials, community leaders and members of her department, observers described an approach that, in some ways, plays to the moment she is in.
The anger at and distrust in policing that manifested in D.C. and across the country after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in May 2020 had mostly faded by the time Smith took over. In its place was an urgent fear of rising crime and, increasingly, agreement among residents and officialdom that more aggressive prosecution, detention and policing was required.
In a city whose autonomy is subject to the whims of federal lawmakers, the loudest congressional voices on public safety have not come from those concerned about police abuse of power, but instead from Republicans who have argued that liberal policies have failed to keep people safe.
Advertisement
Casting the District as ravaged by violence and run by unequipped liberals, House Republicans last year fueled a successful effort to block the D.C. Council’s revisions to the criminal code, marking the first time in 30 years that federal lawmakers overturned local legislation. President Biden signed the disapproval resolution, which also had support from some Democrats, saying he was concerned with a provision that would have lowered the statutory maximum penalty for carjacking.
Since then, Biden, who has said he supports D.C. statehood, has stood between Congress’s will and the District’s autonomy — vetoing a congressional vote to block D.C.’s major police accountability legislation. But the posture of the Oval Office could change if former president Donald Trump is elected in November. He has threatened to “take over” the city, and Republicans in their national platform have said they will “reassert greater Federal Control” over the District “to restore Law and Order.” A battle over the city’s independence would thrust the mayor — who has so far refused to say how she is preparing for the potential dynamic — and her chief into the spotlight.
Over the past 12 months, Smith has shown herself to be a rousing orator when speaking from a pulpit and an expert connector when walking the streets — winning over residents who in interviews described her as honest, competent and warm. Before a TV camera, however, she has struggled, reading from scripts and sometimes fumbling for words. She is also still working to win over some officers, who are skeptical of a résumé largely built outside the department and have shown signs of frustration with her leadership.
Advertisement
“Crime is down, but not because of her,” said a police supervisor who spoke on the condition of anonymity because department rules forbid police to contact members of the media without permission.
Morale has suffered under Smith because of a crush of overtime and weekend work, according to the supervisor and another police official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because of department policy. As of late March, the department’s overtime spending for local initiatives was double what it was at that point last year, according to D.C. police data.
Smith, asked if she had been fully embraced by the department, said that she had and that “if it’s one or two people who are stirring the pot, it’s okay. I can’t be distracted.”
The D.C. police union, which represents officers, did not respond to requests for an interview.
Advertisement
Earlier this summer, even as crime was falling, rumors persisted for weeks that Smith was on her way out. The hearsay ultimately grew so loud that the chief proactively called a Washington Post reporter to reaffirm her commitment to the department.
“Allow me to reiterate,” Smith said in a follow-up text message. “I am not leaving the MPD.”
Earlier this month, The Post requested an interview with Smith to discuss her first year as chief. Bowser came, too.
As they sat beside each other at the Wilson Building, Bowser, asked about Smith’s perception among officers, stood by her hire.
“What I like is she is the people’s cop,” Bowser said. “Because that’s the job of the chief of police.”
Smith oversees a sworn staff of just under 3,300, the department’s lowest head count in at least a quarter-century, according to police data. The officers are responsible for the safety of the District’s roughly 690,000 residents, as well as for coordinating with dozens of federal agencies to staff motorcades and demonstrations around the National Mall. Smith earns a salary of $270,000 a year and lives in a section of Ward 8 that lies across the Anacostia River and was added to the ward through redistricting in 2021.
Advertisement
Those responsibilities are a departure from what Smith oversaw as chief of the U.S. Park Police, a federal agency with a narrower mandate focused on protecting monuments and visiting dignitaries.
In her time with the Park Police, Smith moved among posts in San Francisco, New York and D.C., working as a K-9 officer at the Statue of Liberty and evaluating security at parks around the country. She left the agency in April 2022, just over a year after becoming chief, saying she was intrigued by a job offer from the D.C. police department to become chief equity officer, focused on ensuring diversity and inclusion. She soon became an assistant chief in charge of homeland security.
Inside the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in July 2023, she introduced herself to the District. She would become the first Black woman to permanently lead its police department.
Advertisement
“As a child I had no hopes, I had no dreams. They were far beyond my reach,” she said. “But I believe that all things are possible.”
It had been a long and painful road to the podium where she stood.
Her childhood in Pine Bluff, Ark., was shaped by an absent father addicted to cocaine and a mother who turned to alcohol and physical abuse to cope with the challenges of raising three children alone, she previously told The Post. Relief, she said then, came when she was almost grown and legally adopted by the pastor at her church.
Over the last year, Smith has appeared most passionate when speaking about the District’s children — encouraging parents to be involved in their kids’ lives and engaging with teens at neighborhood events.
Smith said in an interview that the hardest days in her first year as chief were when she bore witness to the agony of the children and teens she is tasked with keeping safe.
One of the most excruciating cases came on a Friday night in May. Ty’ah Settles, 3, was riding in an SUV in Southeast Washington when a gun battle erupted along Hartford Street. More than two dozen bullets flew. One struck the cheerful, chatty toddler, who was pronounced dead at a hospital soon after.
It was the kind of horrific moment that recent police chiefs would have used to make a public point — like when Smith’s predecessor Robert J. Contee III stood before the press the day after 6-year-old Nyiah Courtney was gunned down in Southeast in 2021, raised his voice, and declared that he was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
But that night at the scene of the crime, the first official words about the killing came from the commander of the 7th District station. Smith was not there, and the public noticed.
She held a prayer walk days later. Then she met privately with the girl’s family.
Asked about her absence the night of the killing, Smith said she had trained her staff to step up and lead when necessary: “There are moments in my life, even as the chief of police, where there are other things that I am doing or other places where I have to be.”
Joseph Johnson, who chairs the Advisory Neighborhood Commission for the area where Ty’ah was killed and is friends with her family, called Smith’s absence a slight. He said the family thought of the chief’s prayer walk as a mere photo op. A relative of Ty’ah did not respond to an interview request.
“It sends a message that this is just another killing in an impoverished community,” Johnson said. “They just lost another child, and it’s just another day.”
Smith has pledged to make police visibility a priority during her tenure. She has urged her staff to be more present, especially on foot, in neighborhoods — a change that residents confirm they have seen. And she committed the department to leading community safety walks in each district every week of the year. At many of them, the chief shows up.
“She needed people to see her,” said Robert Pittman, a member of Smith’s 1st District citizen advisory council. “She needed people to understand, ‘I care. I’m here.’”
In June, Smith stood in the basement of Washington National Cathedral, amid a crowd of about 50 people. They were there for Gun Violence Awareness Month. She was dressed in her uniform.
Smith told parishioners about the moment in April 2023 when her mother, with whom she had reconciled later in life, died after a sudden illness.
“My life was over,” Smith said. “Done.”
She understood what it was like to lose someone.
The chief broke out into a Christian hymn, talking about hope.
Here was the pistol-packin’ preacher.
Patrice Green, whose 23-year-old son, Christopher Redfear, was fatally shot in Southeast in 2016, watched the chief and then approached her. They spoke quietly for a number of minutes.
The chief gave Green her card.
Green said, “It really touched my heart.”
Federal and local public safety officials in Washington said Smith has been easy to work with on crafting and implementing policy. Unlike her predecessor, Contee, who felt he had to spend time in front of microphones advocating that the D.C. Council shed policies he saw as too lenient, Smith has spent hers enacting and enforcing the more punitive policies that are now in place. Contee left the department last year for a job at the FBI that he said would allow him to spend more time with his family. The previous police chief, Peter Newsham, left his post in 2020 after four years amid nationwide protests against police violence and clashes with the D.C. Council over police funding and policy changes; Newsham said he did not leave because of the disagreements.
The District’s most influential public safety officials — including Bowser, U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb (D), Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), and the council’s public safety and judiciary committee chair, Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) — praised Smith in interviews this month, describing her as collaborative.
Graves complimented her “data-driven” approach in considering officer deployment.
He also said he was impressed by her leadership style. Soon after she was named chief, Graves said, Smith brought the former acting chief, Ashan Benedict, with her to a meeting and let him lead it. The chief sat back, listening and learning.
“I thought that was really impressive and showed a lot of confidence,” Graves said. “She didn’t need to be performative to show that she was the chief.”
Schwalb said he finds Smith “responsive, professional and focused on getting results.”
Mendelson described her as “able to show a lot of empathy,” which he said is important for building trust in communities.
Pinto, who shepherded a massive public safety package that put D.C. on track toward harsher punishments for a range of crimes, called Smith “a great partner” in developing and implementing the law.
Residents outside of D.C.’s halls of power, meanwhile, are still getting to know her.
On a recent afternoon in Columbia Heights, people running errands had little to say about the chief, noting they were still forming an impression of her. Their focus was on crime.
Saunya Connelly, 59, who has lived in the Mount Pleasant area for 15 years, said she has noticed public safety improve in the last year. “But there are still too many shootings and carjackings,” she said, “especially children getting caught in the crossfire.”
Selena Williams, who lives several blocks from the Benning Road Metro station in Northeast and often hears gunfire, said she wants to see more police on her street. But she expressed confidence in Smith, whose leadership style she described as straightforward and strong.
“I’m grateful to have her as an example of a female leader,” Williams said.
This month in Southeast Washington, a stray bullet struck yet another toddler. The little girl, who is 2, was wounded on a morning walk with her day-care classmates.
This time, Smith addressed the cameras.
“This was another example of gun violence that we cannot have in our communities,” she told reporters. “We are sick and tired of this.”
She appeared to read largely from a script, measured and to the point.
In her car on the way to visit the child, named Emily, at the hospital, Smith called a community activist, Jay Brown, Brown said. She sounded distraught, he recalled, and vowed she was doing everything she could to keep residents safe.
“For the first time, I felt like she wasn’t being handled,” Brown said. “I felt like she was one of us."
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLGkecydZK%2BZX2d9c4COaW5oamlkvaK5xKWYZqudnsGpecWiqaysXa6yor6MnZpmqJ%2BhtqSxjJyfop2WZA%3D%3D