23 Washington, D.C. police officers arrested.

Twenty-three Washington, D.C. police officers have been arrested this year on charges ranging from sexual assault to killing a mother and her 1-year-old daughter, a rate of alleged abuse by city cops that one expert places on par with the worst-run city police departments in the country.

There are 3,818 sworn officers in the department. D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Tuesday that the acts of some of them were "despicable and dishonor the uniform that we wear. "But the public should be encouraged by the fact that MPD has uncovered some of the misconduct internally, which demonstrates that the Metropolitan Police Department has a culture of integrity," Lanier told The Examiner.

Samuel Walker, a criminal justice professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska who specializes in police accountability, said he was astonished by the sheer numbers of D.C. police officers arrested and the level of criminality.

"This might even exceed New Orleans, probably everybody's candidate for worst police department in the country," Walker said.

The arrests raise questions about the recruiting, the screening, and the disciplinary process, Walker said. Bad conduct appears when there's an absence of accountability and there's a sense that the officers can get away with it, he said.

He found the news particular alarming in light of the fact that the Metropolitan Police Department had enacted a number of reforms after the U.S. Department of Justice investigated allegations police shootings and of excessive use of force.

"That should have taken care of a lot of these things. You have to ask, what has happened?," Walker said.

Link:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime-punishment/2011/09/23-dc-cops-busted