Without the decisional (voting) participation of the organizations representing DC’s LGBT populations whose safety and very lives are at risk, this questionable task force should be taken as the sterling, but *stacked* MPD PR effort it appears to be.

Kudos to Jim Graham for calling for GLAA, GLOV and DCTC inclusion in Lanier’s “independent” task force.

We also learned that MPD’s chiefs apparently have their own biases against DC Trans Coalition and Jason Terry, and are excluding DCTC from MPD’s Community Policing Working Group (formerly MPD’s “Bias Policing Task Force”). MPD’s ongoing discrimination against DC’s trans community and one of its premier civil rights organizations, DCTC, is an insult to DC’s entire LGBT community.

On a brighter note, one of best developing ideas at the hearing came from CM David Catania, a longtime serious thinker regarding MPD issues.

Mandatory training and pass/fail testing of MPD officers via online “webinars” for rank and file officers is a smart, efficient practice in urban policing. MPD already has such ongoing education established through interactive online protocols for its officers, so it is simply a matter of adding an anti-LGBT/ GLLU orientation hate crimes seminar and interactive testing to that mix.

Apparently, not all of MPD’s 3,900 force understand the nature of anti-LGBT hate crimes, or their responsibilities in recording those crimes, or that MPD’s GLLU even exists. An online seminar with interactive testing should get the message out to every in short order, and relatively cheaply. The Council and Mayor Gray should promptly vote the funds for such an effort and direct the Chief to implement it promptly.