Chief Sonya Proctor
Metropolitan Police Department
300 Indiana Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
Dear Chief Proctor:
I appreciate the time and attention you gave to my colleagues and me on Tuesday, and look forward to our working together in the weeks and months ahead to address public safety concerns of gay and lesbian citizens of the District. In particular, I look forward to working with your staff and the leaders of the other gay organizations to plan the town meeting that we agreed to hold in mid-to-late January.
Today, however, I must bring a fresh concern to your attention. I received a disturbing report yesterday from Bob Siegel, owner of Glorious Health and Amusements, Inc. at Half and O Streets, SE. He said that two days after former MPD Chief Soulsby's resignation, the police spent five hours in the evening ticketing over one hundred cars in the vicinity of his establishment. This affected cars parked on Half Street, South Capitol Street, and part of O Street. This was brought to his attention shortly after 9 p.m. by a customer who had witnessed it.
On its face, such a massive ticketing effort would appear to be a blatant case of harassment, and a disproportionate targeting of the customers of gay establishments. My colleague Frank Kameny informs me that, on one stretch of O Street near Half Street SE, he was ticketed in the past despite a complete lack of signage or other evidence that parking was prohibited. He suggests that this situation has been a low-level scandal for a long time; perhaps now is the time to resolve the situation once and for all.
Given our shared desire to restore trust and cooperation between the Metropolitan Police Department and members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community, I request that you look into this matter and get an accounting from the officer or officers who went on the most recent ticketing spree.
Thank you for your attention to this, and please let me know if I can be of any assistance.
Sincerely,
Rick Rosendall
President
Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC