Less cops on the beat due to bad management

I don't know how this story slipped under the radar. Last week the Examiner reported that nearly 17% of D.C. Metropolitan Police officers haven't completed mandatory training from 2008.

The training in question covers important items such as CPR, first aid, and updates to the criminal code. Police Chief Cathy Lanier is now on the spot, frantically trying to get 680 officers trained in anticipation of the summer crime surge.

From the article:

The backlog not only puts the department on the wrong side of the law, but is forcing Chief Cathy Lanier to rush the remaining hundreds through training before the annual summer surge in violent crimes. The remaining officers will be trained in two shifts every day, and the training won’t be finished until at least July 2.

The Examiner piece makes it sound as though 680 police officers are not able to work because of the lack of training. It is unclear whether or not this is the case, but it is clear that for the next while a good deal of the force will be tied up in training.

When asked for comment about the backlog, Lanier said:

“I wouldn’t think there would be any,” she said. “Any officer that didn’t go to firearms training or stuff like that would be suspended.”

MPD officers are often the first responders to medical situations (shootings, crashes, etc.) and it's obviously important that they have this training. How in the world can 20% of officers be missing mandated training for 2008? 2008 ended a while ago. How does management get away with this? We're supposed to believe that Lanier can coordinate effective "All Hands" weekends, when "All Hands" really only means 80% of the department?

The police union's comment is best:

“During the most violent time of the year, 20 percent of the people are going to be in training,” police union Chairman Kris Baumann said. “That’s a public safety issue and that’s bad management.”

The Examiner does the math and determines that 16,320 man hours of policing will be lost in the next 2 1/2 weeks because of this.