Jan 19, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

D.C. Police Sgt. Brett Parson is leaving his post as commander of the department’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit and will be reassigned, at his own request, to street patrol duties in the city’s Columbia Heights neighborhood.

Parson has headed the unit since former Police Chief Charles Ramsey appointed him to the post in June 2001, one year after Ramsey created the gay unit in June 2000. Gay activists have praised the unit under Parson’s command for its direct crime-fighting work as well as its community outreach and public education functions.

“I have said from the beginning that my desire has always been to eventually return to street-level policing, which is my passion,” Parson said.

He said he decided to request a change in assignment at this time because interim Police Chief Cathy Lanier has restructured the department to place greater emphasis on neighborhood patrols, including the deployment of more police personnel on the streets. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who took office Jan. 2, initiated the changes and said he appointed Lanier as chief because she favors a stronger police presence on the streets.

Parson said he has been assigned to Police Service Area 302 in the Third Police District, which covers the section of Northwest Washington known as Columbia Heights. The area has experienced a sharp increase in crime in recent years as large numbers of new residents, including gays, have bought and renovated homes in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.

Lanier will likely appoint someone from outside the 15-member unit to head the unit because no one other than Parson currently holds the rank of sergeant. Supervisors with the rank of sergeant or above are usually selected to head specialized units within the department such as the Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit.

Tough yet compassionate

Ramsey’s decision to give the gay liaison unit powers to conduct investigations and make arrests under Parson’s tenure made it one of the first such units among the nation’s police departments to exercise such authority. At the time Ramsey created the unit in 2000, the gay liaison units in most of the police departments that had them conducted mostly outreach and public education to build improved relations between police and gays.

Prior to being assigned to the gay unit, Parson had worked in key crime-fighting units, including the homicide and narcotics and special investigation squads. During his tenure as head of the Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit, Parson played a direct role in assisting his previous units in gay-related cases such as murders.

He startled some in the community by occasionally arresting gay bar patrons on drug-related charges. Yet bar owners and employees, along with customers of most of the city’s gay clubs, praised Parson for responding quickly to calls for help in cases where criminals targeted bar patrons for robberies or assaults.

Parson arrested an aggressive panhandler in the O Street, S.E., gay bar district at least three times within a three-week period after the panhandler continued to threaten to vandalize people’s cars if they did not pay him money for “protection.”

“He is the type of police officer who should typify what all police officers should be,” said gay activist Vince Micone, who has served as a volunteer member of the gay unit as part of the department’s reserve officer program. “He is tough in enforcing the law but shows great care and compassion for people.”

Last week, Parson worked with transgender activist Earline Budd to locate the family members of a transgender woman who was found slain in her apartment on Jan. 6. As he had with family members of other murder victims from the gay and transgender communities, Parson consoled the mother of Diamond Person and informed her that police had filed charges of first-degree murder against a man arrested for the killing.

“I’m very sorry to see him go, but I respect his decision to follow his calling and go back on regular patrols,” said Sterling Washington, former president of the D.C. Coalition of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Men and Women.

“He was really the face of the unit,” said Rev. Candis Shultis, pastor of the city’s Metropolitan Community Church, which has a mostly gay congregation. “And he was a great face for the department within our community. He seemed to be everywhere.”

A ‘tremendous loss’

Veteran D.C. gay activist Frank Kameny called Parson’s departure from the Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit a “tremendous loss” for the community. Kameny expressed concern that Parson’s replacement may not be given or may not choose to exercise the arrest and investigatory authority that Parson used during his ...