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Tag: gregg pemberton

  • DC police to get 13% pay raise – WTOP News

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    Mayor Muriel Bowser and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson announced a new collective bargaining agreement with the D.C. Fraternal Order of Police Union.

    D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announces a collective bargaining agreement with the union that represents the city’s police force.
    (WTOP/Linh Bui)

    WTOP/Linh Bui

    bowser speaks at news conference alongisde phil mendelson and other leadership
    The agreement includes a 13% pay raise for D.C. police officers.
    (WTOP/Linh Bui)

    WTOP/Linh Bui

    D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announces a collective bargaining agreement with the union that represents the city's police force.
    bowser speaks at news conference alongisde phil mendelson and other leadership

    Mayor Muriel Bowser and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson announced a new collective bargaining agreement with the D.C. Fraternal Order of Police Union.

    It includes a 13% pay raise for officers, sergeants, lieutenants and above in the D.C. police department. That raise is effective starting Oct. 1.

    “They have a challenging job in normal circumstances. They’ve had an even more challenging job in the last weeks,” Bowser said. “They’ve played an important role in driving down crime, not just in the last two weeks, but especially in the last two years. And we are so grateful for their work.”

    Mayor Bowser shared new initiatives to recruit and retain officers: expanding the take-home vehicle policy by adding 100 vehicles, supporting the removal of the mandatory retirement age, and partnering with the University of the District of Columbia to offer college credit for academy training.

    “We’re going to make sure that Washington, D.C., is the best big city to be a police officer,” Bowser said. “And this is work that we’re committed to doing together.”

    The D.C. police department has shrank over the past decade and is currently at 3,188 sworn officers. The goal is to increase that to 4,000. This year, the department hired 135 new recruits and welcomed 124 cadets.

    The pay increases include cost-of-living adjustments and break down to 4.5% in fiscal year 2024, followed by 4.25% in fiscal years 2025 and 2026. In total, it will cost about $200 million over four years.

    Mendelson said he will move emergency legislation at the council’s September meeting.

    “I fully expect that the council will be approving this contract on the 17th so that it can be implemented as quickly as possible,” he said.

    Chairman of the D.C. police union Gregg Pemberton applauded Bowser and Mendelson; he said the labor agreement is a “start.”

    “There’s a lot more that needs to be done to fix the police department,” he said.

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Linh Bui

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  • DC police union calls for city’s violence interruption programs to be ‘shut down’ and examined – WTOP News

    DC police union calls for city’s violence interruption programs to be ‘shut down’ and examined – WTOP News

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    D.C.’s police union is calling on all violence interruption programs to have their funding immediately halted until the programs can be examined.

    D.C.’s police union is calling on all violence interruption programs that the city funds to have their funding immediately halted until the programs can be thoroughly examined, they wrote in a statement released Monday.

    The union said the move is a necessary step after Ward 8 Council member Trayon White’s arrest for allegedly accepting bribes to help a business owner renew violence interruption contracts.

    “We’re asking that these programs get shut down until someone can investigate and get to the bottom of whether or not they’re operating appropriately,” union chairman Gregg Pemberton told WTOP.

    Violence interruption programs include community-based strategies for tackling crime, and the city, like many others across the nation, helps fund many of the programs. In the statement, the union claims these programs are “shady businesses touting unproven approaches to improving public safety.”

    In White’s case, the council member could be seen on video agreeing to accept $156,000 in payments from the business owner for offering his help in getting a contract renewed. The union called him “an unabashed antagonist of police,” and noted that his arrest “exposed the deeply flawed rationale behind” legislation passed by the D.C. Council.

    “This arrest was just two weeks ago, and, obviously, while we’re processing the impact of these effects, what we’re realizing is that these violence interruption programs, potentially, have a lot of questions that need to be answered, and we think what’s appropriate is that the council shut down these programs until we get those answers,” Pemberton said.

    Pemberton called for background checks for all employees of the programs, even though some of the programs hire individuals who served time for committing crimes in the past.

    In addition to cutting the funding until audits are complete, the union also called for the city to terminate the contracts of programs, which are found to have not followed the rules of their contracts.

    WTOP has reached out to the offices of Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Attorney General for comment.

    “I think we should start asking more questions about who these (people convicted of crimes) are, and whether or not they’re actually good for these communities,” Pemberton said.

    The union chair also believes the focus should be on filling officer vacancies in the city.

    “I think we’re at a place where not only is it dangerous to have these people out here, but they’re now sucking up taxpayer funds to, allegedly, go out and do this job that police should be doing,” Pemberton said.

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    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Mike Murillo

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