http:\/\/twitter.com\/lensipes<\/a>.<\/p>\n[Audio Begins]<\/p>\n
Cedric Hendricks: Hello. This is Cedric Hendricks and this is DC Public Safety.\u00a0 Today we\u2019re going to be talking about DC Safe Surrender with Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief, Peter Newsham. Welcome to DC Safe Surrender.<\/p>\n
Peter Newsham:: Thank you Cedric.<\/p>\n
Cedric Hendricks: Chief, can you tell us how many warrants there are outstanding in the District of Columbia and the types of warrants that you see?<\/p>\n
Peter Newsham:\u00a0 We have over 600 felony warrants that are outstanding.\u00a0 The biggest category of cases that we have is misdemeanor bench warrants and there\u2019s more than 12,000 of those, so that\u2019s significant.\u00a0 And then we have another category which is other warrants, is about 1,000.\u00a0 So all told, we have more than 14,000 warrants outstanding.<\/p>\n
Cedric Hendricks: And then one of the functions that the police department plays is arresting people on warrants.\u00a0 And how does that typically happen?<\/p>\n
Peter Newsham:\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 We have warrant squads and that\u2019s their function is to go out and find folks who are wanted on all of these warrants, you know, any warrant would come into play.\u00a0 The other way, as you know, that people can be arrested when they have warrants outstanding on them is if they come into contact with a police officer.\u00a0 It could be something as simple as a traffic accident.\u00a0 They could be involved in a traffic accident, we run their name, their license and lo and behold if they have a warrant, we\u2019re required to take them into custody.<\/p>\n
Cedric Hendricks: Now can executing a warrant be a risky proposition for a police officer?<\/p>\n
Peter Newsham:\u00a0 Well, it can be, you know, because you don\u2019t know what to expect when you\u2019re serving a warrant.\u00a0 They serve all kinds of warrants.\u00a0 There\u2019s been some very profile cases where officers have been either injured or killed serving warrants.\u00a0 So there is, you know, the police have to be prepared for that potential eventuality is that it ends up becoming a violent confrontation.\u00a0 Most of the folks, I would suspect that are wanted on the misdemeanor bench warrants would not pose that threat, but the officers don\u2019t know that so they have to be prepared for those kinds of things.<\/p>\n
Cedric Hendricks: Now DC Safe Surrender offers an opportunity for individuals with non-violent felony warrants, misdemeanor warrants, to turn themselves in.\u00a0 So what do you see as the public safety benefit of an event like this that provides an opportunity.<\/p>\n
Peter Newsham:\u00a0 Well first of all, I mean it\u2019s a benefit to the individual.\u00a0 They can get this thing off of their back essentially.\u00a0 They don\u2019t have to be concerned about it hanging over their head.\u00a0 You don\u2019t, it\u2019s very inconvenient to have a warrant served on you if you\u2019re doing something, for example, at a family function, traveling somewhere, we\u2019re going to take you into custody and you\u2019re going to have to go through that process.\u00a0 If you come down here one of these Saturdays in August, you can resolve the matter.\u00a0 Once the matter is resolved, it\u2019s resolved forever.\u00a0 As far as a public safety piece for us, the value that we see is that, you know, we have these warrant squads that are out there and in some cases, they are trying to apprehend folks who are violent.\u00a0 And they\u2019re trying to evade capture.\u00a0 Like I said, I don\u2019t think the large majority of the folks that have these non-violent cases are in that category, but if we\u2019re able to get some of those folks to come in, it frees up our warrant squad to get some of the more violent folks.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a benefit to everybody, to get the violent people off the streets.<\/p>\n
Cedric Hendricks: Now one of the significant aspects of DC Safe Surrender is a collaboration of law enforcement agencies within the District of Columbia.\u00a0 How important is that in the success of an endeavor like this?<\/p>\n
Peter Newsham:\u00a0 Oh, it\u2019s very important and we\u2019re very fortunate in the district because of the relationships that we have.\u00a0 As you know, we have the local Metropolitan police, but we have a lot of federal agencies, the CSOSA, pre-trial services,\u00a0 US Attorney\u2019s Office, the Office of the Attorney General and all these folks, the courts of course.\u00a0 All of these folks come into play.\u00a0 And like I said, we had a relationship prior to going into the Safe Surrender Operation.\u00a0 We had a Safe Surrender, as you know, about three years ago which was very successful.\u00a0 But having those relationships is really critical to making the city safe.<\/p>\n
Cedric Hendricks: Well now you mentioned the Safe Surrender back in 2007, I believe it was.\u00a0 And it\u2019s my understandingthat there were about 530 individuals that turned themselves in.\u00a0 What is your hope as we approach Safe Surrender this time around, in terms of the success?\u00a0 What would be a successful outcome as you said?<\/p>\n
Peter Newsham:\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s going to be successful if we get any number of people to turn themselves in, a significant number of people you know?\u00a0 If we get hundreds of people to turn themselves in, fantastic; If we get thousands of people to turn themselves in, even better.\u00a0 You know, like I told you, being able to free up the warrant squads that are working in the city to go after the most violent people is really what the police department, I think it\u2019s what most people expect the police department to do.<\/p>\n
Cedric Hendricks: Well, we thank you for your participation here today.\u00a0 This has been Cedric Hendricks talking with Metropolitan Police Department, Assistant Chief Peter Newsham about DC Safe Surrender.<\/p>\n
[Audio Ends]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
See http:\/\/media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts. Radio Program available at http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/audio\/2011\/07\/dc-safe-surrender-2011-an-interview-with-assistant-mpd-chief-peter-newsham\/ We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http:\/\/twitter.com\/lensipes. [Audio Begins] Cedric Hendricks: Hello. This is Cedric Hendricks and this is DC Public Safety.\u00a0 Today we\u2019re going to be talking about DC Safe Surrender with Metropolitan Police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,12,15],"tags":[62,89,87,88,64],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiopodcast","category-fugitivesafesurrender","category-interviewswithpolicymakers","tag-d-c","tag-d-c-safe-surrender","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-safe-surrender","tag-washington","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBoKk-bb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":695,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions\/695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}