DC Police to be deputized as Federal Agents

Giving them national arrest powers:

"As part of the program, several D.C. detectives will be deputized as ATF officers, allowing them to cross borders to investigate guns that end up in the District."

Remember though, it's all the gun's fault and not incompetence in the agencies:

"He acknowledged, however, that the agency's ability to curb gun trafficking in the city was limited. Further hindering ATF's progress was the fact that federal investigators typically didn't receive D.C. police reports on gun arrests for five to seven days, a critical delay."


So we're giving more authority to a department that can't even expedite basic paperwork. That makes sense.

And they admit they're going to start harassing people and using informants to do so:

Some days, the unit will employ "high-intensity traffic stops," pulling over cars for minor offenses to try to establish probable cause to search vehicles. Officers also will use informants to help them secure search warrants for suspected gun holders.

And on the reliability of "trace data":

So while city officers continued to recover more than 2,000 guns annually in recent years, investigators rarely tracked where the weapons were coming from and who the leading dealers were.


So, once again, more authority for incompetence. I bet Virginia's going to love DC cops coming into their territory.