And when it comes to something as highly sensitive (and potentially career-ending) as serious reporting of police operations behind the scenes, using unnamed reliable sources is often the only coin of the realm for good reporters. It is not unlike the unnamed sources WaPo/(Woodward and Bernstein) had to use in their reporting of the Watergate scandal of the 1970′s.

FYI, for newbies to town, and interested others– MPD has quite a long history of abuse of its LGBT officers. In a PD whose management has had little probative oversight from our local legislative officials in recent years, it is especially important that our LGBT press keep a close eye on the probability that such institutional and/or management abuses can repeat at MPD.

And MPD management abuse is not limited to LGBT officers by any means. Just google…
“MPD misfired what went wrong” …
and read that story for a glimpse of what’s really going on at MPD.

No. The rights of Sergeant Mahl and all of our dedicated MPD officers are much better served by the oversight of our city’s probative press– both LGBT and straight, too.

But you do Sergeant Mahl no service by attempting to demonize one of the best LGBT newspapers in the world– as well as one of the best LGBT journalists in the world. Over decades, millions of readers by now know the journalistic integrity of the Washington Blade, as well as its award-winning, veteran reporter Lou Chibbaro, Jr.

It is the Blade’s job to report the news fairly; not to cheer lead for Matt Mahl or anyone else. Regular readers of the Blade know that important, ongoing news stories get followed up routinely.

This is an important story for LGBT policing as well as for the credibility of MPD’s management at its highest levels. The Blade would be derelict in its mission if it did not cover this story.

Also, this is a time when the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) stands accused of management malfeasance, cronyism, a sham, PR-driven hate crimes task force, discriminatory policing, biased policing, abuse of crime victims, and unfair, abusive internal treatment of its own MPD officers.

The damning allegations against MPD for crime case suppression, coverups and abuse of rape and sex assault victims, by Human Rights Watch in January, may be just the tip of a very large iceberg.

What if police abuse and case coverups are happening to anti-LGBT hate crimes, too? What if crime case suppression is happening across a whole spectrum of crime categories?

We all ought to be grateful that we have a robust LGBT news media in DC watching out for our public safety.

The writer lists undisclosed allegations, quotes attorneys who do not know the parties involved, who are unrelated to the story, and who are unfamiliar with the case. Further there are no dates listed. No date of a complaint, no date of administrative action, no time-frame relating to the administrative leave, no date he is expected to return to duty, nothing.

The Blade should be ashamed of this pseudo journalism, and either update the story, or retract it completely. Sergeant Mahl is a fine example of a police officer, and certainly more professional in his work than the writer.

A sudden media spotlight on this GLLU officer is misleading and unfair to him. A similar media spotlight on A/C Groomes some years back was also misleading and unfair to her.

MPD-HQ is at fault for poor communications with the press about their routine status change for MPD officers under MPD investigation. That status change is supposed to reassure the public of MPD’s integrity. Ironically, by failing to fully inform the news media, it does just the opposite.

MPD-HQ essentially lets news reports besmirch the innocent along with the guilty without providing counterbalancing facts.

MPD needs to provide the media the full story of MPD procedures. And it should be cautioning and reminding the public of the due process and presumption of innocence everyone deserves.

Like it or not, too many have an inaccurate, stereotypical bias, ingrained from many years and dozens if not hundreds of TV and movie police-themed scenes in which a ‘bad cop’ is stripped of his/her badge and gun.

When the news of an internal MPD investigation of an allegation leaks to the press, as it often does, MPD-HQ should be ready with informative ‘boilerplate’ data sheets to help inform the press and naturally curious public.

That information should fully explain MPD procedures, the reasons for those procedures, and caution the press that all subjects of MPD investigations should be presumed innocent, pending results of an investigation.

So I was mistaken (above). We SHOULD focus on due process at MPD– which must include truthful and open communications with the press and the public MPD is supposed to be serving.

I don’t think it’s intentional abuse of a subject, but MPD-HQ neglect is almost as bad. I think MPD as an organization has just drifted into a culture of carelessness or disrespect– of both the public, and its right to know, as well as of members of its own MPD family.

And that’s just a sad drift for all of us.