The U.S. Attorney's office is responsible for all criminal prosecutions in the District of Columbia. According to press reports, twenty-nine officers have been prosecuted "for assaultive behavior" since 1990, according to a U.S. Attorney's office spokesman, with the figure including off-duty incidents; the relatively high number of prosecutions may reflect poor background screening during the 1989-1990 hiring period.60 A U.S. Attorney's office spokesman told the press that convictions are difficult because victims "don't have clean hands themselves."61

In November 1996, Officer Richard Fitzgerald, white, was convicted in D.C. Superior Court of assault charges for beating a drug suspect, who was black, after a chase on August 25, 1993.62 The 4th District officer, a member of the troubled 1990 class, allegedly hit the man in the head repeatedly with his nightstick. The department considered Fitzgerald's actions justified, and Fitzgerald claims that his supervisors told him that he deserved praise for making a difficult arrest. Yet fellow officers reported that he did not have to keep hitting the suspect, and since fellow officers' testimony is usually taken more seriously than citizens', the officer was convicted. Fitzgerald had been the subject of six complaints and was formally reprimanded when he was questioning a Latino in 1995 and told an ethnic joke about hitting Latinos harder to make them speak English. An MPD detective and former union steward said that Fitzgerald's behavior "showed no pattern," and that, to his credit, Fitzgerald was "one of the most aggressive officers in 4D."63

In 1996, of the two federal criminal civil rights cases decided by prosecutors for the federal district (containing the District of Columbia), neither was prosecuted (presented to a grand jury to seek an indictment).64 Between 1992 and 1995, seven cases were considered, of which none were prosecuted.

60 Avis Thomas-Lester, "DC officer indicted in brutality case," Washington Post, May 19, 1996.

61 Ibid.

62 Bill Miller, "DC Officer Convicted of assault on suspect," Washington Post, November 2, 1996. He was scheduled to be sentenced in September 1997, according the U.S. Attorney's office by telephone August 20, 1997.

63 Thomas-Lester, "DC Officer indicted...," Washington Post.

64 According to data obtained by TRAC from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, Justice Department. Cases prosecuted or declined represent only a portion of the total number of complaints alleging federal criminal civil rights violations in each district in a given year. Several steps prior to this decision narrow down the number of complaints actually received to those considered worthy of consideration.