D.C. police Sgt. Brett Parson is no longer overseeing the department’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit. (Blade photo by Henry Linser)

By LOU CHIBBARO JR, Washington Blade
Sep 20 2009, 9:37 AM  |     |     |  
UPDATED: Sep 22, 3:58 PM

The union representing D.C. police officers joined gay activists this week in raising concern over the future of the department’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit following news that its longtime leader, Sgt. Brett Parson, left the unit Sept. 20 to take a new assignment.

Parson, who became head of the highly acclaimed GLLU in 2001, requested and received a transfer to the post of street patrol supervisor with the Sixth Police District.

“The change was at my request and I am thankful the chief of police honored my request to return to patrol,” Parson told the Blade in an e-mail.

“As you know, my heart has always belonged to patrol and street-level policing.”

Activists said Parson’s departure from the GLLU comes at a time when Police Chief Cathy Lanier has made changes in the unit’s operation, and some activists believe her changes have weakened and possibly “decimated” the unit.

This week, Kris Baumann, chair of the Labor Committee of the Fraternal Order of Police, which serves as the police union, said he agrees with the activists’ concerns.

“They’ve gone out in the public and said they support the GLBT community and the GLLU,” Baumann said, referring to Lanier and her top commanders. “But what they’ve done internally — they’ve basically dismantled the GLLU. They let it simply atrophy.”

Lanier strongly disputed the assessment, saying the changes she has made are part of a detailed plan to expand and strengthen the GLLU and three other police liaison units working with the Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander, and deaf and hard of hearing communities.

“This is part of the strategic plan that we laid out not only back in 2007, but again in 2008 and 2009,” she said in a telephone interview Monday.

“What we’re trying to do is integrate [the liaison units] throughout all of the patrol services bureau” so a larger number of specially trained officers familiar with LGBT issues are available in all seven police districts, Lanier said.

Chris Farris, co-chair of Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence, which monitors police-related issues, said he doesn’t oppose Lanier’s plan to expand the reach of the liaison units. But he noted that GLOV members and other LGBT activists have become alarmed that Lanier appears to be diminishing the effectiveness of the current version of the GLLU despite her promise to keep it in place.

He said that Lanier has yet to set a firm timetable for establishing the satellite GLLU teams in the police districts and the training of officers to staff the teams.

Police officials confirmed this week that Lanier during the past month removed the GLLU and the three other constituency liaison units from the Office of the Chief of Police and placed them under the jurisdiction of the department’s Patrol Services Bureau.

Gay activist Peter Rosenstein said the change would likely downgrade the influence of the units.

But Lanier said the move is part of her reorganization plan and wouldn’t lessen the units’ influence on the department.

Police officials also confirmed that Lanier assigned Sgt. Carlos Mejia, the current head of the police Latino Liaison Unit, to be the new head of the GLLU while he retains his duties as head of the Latino Unit.

“I’m really concerned with how this will work,” Rosenstein said. “And once again, there is now no one in immediate charge of the GLLU as their sole responsibility.”

Lanier said the officers with all four special liaison units will largely be supervised by Patrol Services Bureau Lt. Arthur Donegan, who will provide the units with support and direction similar to the way Parson directed the units in his most recent post.

Farris said Tuesday that GLOV also learned that officials recently placed further restrictions on the operation of the GLLU by taking away the officers’ ability to work overtime when one or more officers of the four-person unit are on leave and by restricting the use of police vehicles.

GLLU officers in the past were allowed to take their police cruisers home with them, which allowed them to immediately return to duty if the unit required their services. Officials recently withdrew the GLLU officers’ clearance to take the cruisers home due to budget constraints, Farris said a reliable source told him.

Neither Lanier, who spoke with the Blade before Farris made this disclosure, nor a police spokesperson could be immediately reached to comment on the overtime and police cruiser issues.

“At the same time we are experiencing an increase in hate crimes,” Farris said, “they have shaken up the GLLU, removed its leaders, taken their patrol cars, and eliminated the ability for overtime.”

Farris said he called the GLLU on Monday through a pager number that the unit has distributed throughout the LGBT community over the past several years. He noted that as of Tuesday afternoon he had yet to receive a response, a development, he said, that contrasts with the unit’s record of returning calls within an hour or less.

LGBT activists have raised concern over plans first announced by Lanier in 2007 to decentralize the operations of the GLLU and the three other police liaison units.

Lanier said decentralization would strengthen the units by placing their members in each of the department’s seven police districts throughout the city. At the request of activists, she promised to retain a central GLLU office in Dupont Circle to coordinate activities.

A number of LGBT activists, including GLOV members, said Lanier’s original plan to incorporate the GLLU into her decentralization plan would have diminished its role as a cohesive entity providing assistance to members of the LGBT community in need of police services. She responded by dropping her earlier plan to eliminate the central GLLU headquarters in Dupont Circle and by committing to keeping it for an indefinite period of time to coordinate GLLU activities in the seven police districts.

Former Police Chief Charles Ramsey appointed Parson as head of the GLLU in June 2001 a short time after Ramsey created the unit. Parson received widespread praise from LGBT activists and local groups for his work as head of the unit.

Under his leadership, the unit received international recognition and awards for its role as a pioneer police entity in establishing trust and a working relationship between gay residents and a major U.S. police department.

Unlike LGBT liaison units in other cities, Ramsey empowered the D.C. unit to investigate crimes and make arrests rather than to serve only as a community relations operation.

In January 2007, after serving as head of the GLLU for more than five years, Parson asked Lanier to assign him to patrol duties, and Lanier agreed. But less than a year later, in October 2007, Lanier transferred Parson back to the chief’s office in a newly created post of commander of all four of the department’s special liaison units.

She named him to the new post following complaints by gay activists of her initial plans to decentralize the GLLU. Activists said the plan would have effectively dismantled the GLLU as a cohesive organization that had worked closely with the LGBT community for six years.

The chief later backed down from her plan to eliminate the central office of the GLLU, but said she would move forward with her plans to set up special liaison teams in the police districts.

Farris and Rosenstein said this week they were deeply concerned that Lanier appears to be diminishing the GLLU’s ability to do its work, with little sign that the decentralized units will be set up in the police districts anytime soon.

“The fact that we have to continue to fight to maintain an active and full force GLLU is unacceptable,” Rosenstein said. “With the rise in hate crimes against the GLBT community, you would think this unit would be beefed up, not decimated as it has been.”

Parson said in an e-mail that he will serve as a supervisor of patrol officers in the Sixth Police District. He also will continue his longstanding duties as a member of the Family Support Team, an internal police unit that provides support for families of police officers who are killed or critically wounded in the line of duty.

Parson also noted that his rank during the past two years as acting lieutenant was a temporary status given to him because the job of commander of the Special Liaison Units required the rank of lieutenant.

“I have and will continue to be a sergeant,” he said. “I never requested to be promoted, nor do I wish to be promoted at this time. My place is on the street with the hardworking officers responding to 911 calls and keeping the city safe.”

Permalink