An angry crowd yelled insults and accusations at Washington D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham Thursday, in the middle of the Newsham’s yearly performance review.
Newsham was shouted down and called a liar by a hostile crowd at the Wilson Building in downtown DC, at the Metropolitan Police Department’s performance oversight hearing in front of the committee on the judiciary and public safety.
Heavy security was called in and four people were escorted out. People in the crowd, including members of the Black Lives Matter movement, yelled over Newsham as he tried to talk about the department’s accomplishments, including a 23 percent drop in serious violent crime in 2017.
One woman, sitting right behind Chief Newsham, repeated the words “stop and frisk” over and over again as Newsham spoke.
The incident, coming just days after a WUSA 9 Special Assignment Unit investigation found 8 out 10 people stop and frisked by DC Police are black.
Others in the crowd yelled the name Brian Trainer, the officer who was cleared of criminal wrong doing in the shooting death of Terrence Sterling. The department has recommended Trainer be fired as a result of that incident.
Councilmember Anita Bonds who was trying to calm the crowd, urged Chief Newsham to sit down with the Black Lives Matter movement to talk about the issues that sparked all the outrage.
“Anytime members of the community are this upset, there’s a problem,” Bonds said to the chief.
