The Fraternal Order of Police said the incoming acting chief of the U.S. Park Police used his position to improperly get criminal charges dropped, including in cases where officers were assaulted.
Gregory Monahan is set to become acting chief of the Park Police in D.C. next week, when outgoing chief Robert MacLean becomes the head of the Interior Department’s Office of Law Enforcement and Security. He was recently the force’s deputy chief in San Francisco.
The complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, filed Friday, alleges that on two occasions, employees of the Presidio Trust in San Francisco were arrested, but Monahan intervened to get the charges dropped.
According to the FOP, in one case, a Park Police officer was shoved by a drunken employee of the trust, who resisted arrest.
Other charges which were dropped included being drunk in public, interference with police officers, trespassing, obstruction, and failing to obey lawful orders.
The Presidio Trust is a federal agency that helps fund Park Police in San Francisco, through a National Park Service partnership with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
According to the complaint, the head of the trust asked Monahan to dismiss the charges against the Presidio Trust employees. The FOP complaint alleges Monahan contacted an assistant federal prosecutor in San Francisco, who dropped all charges.
“The FOP believes that to engage in this unequal enforcement of the law to benefit other federal employees simply because they provide funds to the U.S. Park Police is illegal and not in compliance with our obligations to uphold the law,” said Michael Shalton, chairman of the FOP, in a statement.
Shalton said officers risk their lives daily to make arrests: “It destroys morale knowing that legal arrests are being dismissed not based on the merits, but because the person is a federal employee and is somehow entitled to have charges against them dropped.”
A spokesperson with U.S. Park Police did not immediately respond to a WTOP request for comment.
