D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration notified a Metropolitan Police Department officer she could be fired for living in Maryland.
In a letter obtained by News4, the officer was notified she must appear at a show-cause hearing to prove she still lives in the District or her job will be “forfeited and she will be separated from District service.”
Police union officials acknowledge the officer, who has been with the department for two years, did recently move from D.C. to Maryland after she got married.
D.C. employees who request preferential consideration for employment because they are D.C. residents are required to live in the city for seven years before they move.
"It costs $95,000 to recruit and train one police officer," Delroy Burton, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police, said. "In the last 20 months we’ve lost 629 police officers. We are down 131 positions on the force. We’re supposed to be at 4,000. We’re at 3,869. I can’t imagine the District would think it makes sense to remove this officer when we’re struggling to retain officers."
The officer does not dispute she received special consideration in her application because of her D.C. residency.
A representative for the D.C. Department of Human Resources, which instituted the job action, said once the matter goes to a hearing, it becomes a personnel matter and each case is handled on a case-by-case basis.
