Over the weekend, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier extended overtime for D.C. officers and brought out more patrols as part of her “All Hands on Deck” crime fighting strategy. The results? About twice as many arrests as usual, and a 10% drop in crime compared to the average of the previous five weekends.

I think I speak for all of us when I say “whoop-de-damn-do.”

There’s something fishy when this is reported as “the number of crimes was 10 percent below the average number reported the previous five weekends.” I’ve tried to look up the crime statistics for those weekends on the MPD website, but haven’t had any luck. I’m guessing that there was at least one weekend where the crime rate was even lower than the “All Hands on Deck” weekend, but you don’t really want to point that out when you’re trying to engage in a public relations campaign fight crime.

Some officers aren’t too happy about the stunt strategy. From the WaPo:

“Officers know a P.R. stunt when they see it,” said Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police Labor Committee, adding that it was a drain on resources to have officers work a pair of 12-hour shifts. “They are saying, ‘Here we go again.’ ”

The department’s own research shows that the weekends aren’t even the busiest time in some high-crime areas, Baumann said. For example, in the 7th District, the southernmost area east of the Anacostia River, crime is highest on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

And most of the arrests were for prostitution, followed by reckless driving. Not that these aren’t crimes, but I’m guessing that these really aren’t the crimes that people are complaining about in Southeast.

And the event will not be repeated again this year, according to the chief. So the $1.3 million dollars that was spent has a one time impact. I don’t know the average salary plus benefits for a rookie D.C. cop, but I’m thinking that money could have paid for at least ten more officers on the street 40 hours a week, rather than a lot of officers on the street for 48 hours once a year.