Seven police officers with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., are under investigation after it was discovered they had confiscated several firearms without making arrests, Chief Robert Contee announced Friday.
The seven officers, who are each assigned to a special police unit that focuses on suppressing violent crime in the city, have been placed on administrative leave or desk duty while the agency conducts the investigations. Members of the police unit who are not under investigation have been reassigned to other teams within the department, according to MPD officials.
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“In these cases, the suspect was not arrested, and the suspect should’ve been arrested,” Contee said Friday. “The firearm was taken and placed into evidence. However, the suspect was allowed to go free, and that’s just not the way that we conduct business in the Metropolitan Police Department.”
Officials opened an investigation into the misconduct after it was discovered on Sept. 11 that two officers had confiscated an illegal firearm but did not arrest the suspect, Contee said. The incident was discovered as officers reviewed body camera footage during a separate investigation.
The firearm was properly placed into evidence, but the officers submitted a written report of the incident that was inconsistent with the footage, according to Contee. This prompted the agency to investigate the matter further, finding that at least five other members of the police unit had done “similar acts of misconduct,” he said.
“It’s not a mystery where the guns are. The mystery is why the people weren’t arrested,” Contee said.
Investigators have notified the U.S. attorney general’s office to determine whether the misconduct is more widespread, according to the police chief.
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The investigation comes as the district’s police have been under increased pressure to remove guns from the streets amid rising crime rates in the district. The MPD regularly reports how many illegal guns it has confiscated on its social media accounts, with the agency touting 2,000 seizures of illegal guns so far this year.
“While we stress the importance of holding offenders accountable for their actions, we have an obligation to hold our members to a high standard for all that they do,” Contee said. “The expectation of our officers is they make arrests when they have probable cause to make an arrest.”
