Harry Jaffe, The Examiner
2007-10-05 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

Wendell Cunningham could pass for Adrian Fenty’s brother. Cunningham is a cop with 20 years on the MPD. Like the mayor, his head is shaved and shiny, and his body is buff. He’d just run 21 miles to prepare for the Army 10-miler. At 42 he’s a bit older than Fenty. The mayor is lanky; the cop is coiled. And disappointed — in the way Fenty has handled himself around the shooting of DeOnte Rawlings. “He immediately convicted the police officer,” Cunningham tells me. “Rather than sit back and allow the investigation to run its course, he’s given people the sense the officer’s guilty.”

We are sitting in Cunningham’s police cruiser in the Penn Branch neighborhood, around the corner from where he lives with his wife and two young children, in the house that was burglarized earlier this year.

Turns out thugs have been busting into the homes of cops these days to rip off their weapons. More on that later.

What riles Cunningham and other street cops is the way Fenty has rallied to the side of the Rawlings’ family — inviting his sisters to take the microphone at a press conference, attending a candle light service for the 14-year-old, making a public display of paying for the funeral — and hyping the fact that the FBI will investigate the shooting.

Why, Cunningham and other cops ask, has Fenty shown no respect to the veteran officer who allegedly shot Rawlings?

“He’s sending the wrong message,” Cunningham says. “Let the chief do her job.”

Cunningham was doing his job on the Emergency Response Team last February when his wife called to say their home had been burglarized. She had come home to find thugs in her house and on her lawn. They escaped. Among the losses was Cunningham’s Glock-16, his police issue semiautomatic pistol.

“I was not the first cop this has happened to,” he says. “They want the weapons.”

Cunningham cruised the neighborhood he loves looking for the bad guys. He got an ID and put the word out for the suspect. One day in April another officer said the perp had been spotted at Washington Hospital Center. Cunningham drove to the hospital, confirmed his man was inside, called for backup and helped arrest him, just as the burglar chucked the gun he had stolen from Cunningham’s house.

The man has since pleaded guilty to other robberies, fingered an accomplice, and provided leads on homicides. Both are behind bars.

Lesson learned: Sometimes a cop has to take matters into his own hands to keep the peace in his neighborhood, where he is a well-respected peace keeper.

Lesson learned from Mayor Fenty’s reaction to the Rawlings shooting: “I love policing in the District,” Cunningham says, “but it makes me wonder if I want to stick my neck out.”

How can Fenty rebuild trust with the police?

“Let the investigation take its course,” Cunningham says. “And start going to roll calls and speaking to officers.

Time for Fenty to go door to door again — this time to connect with his cops.

Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at hjaffe@washingtonian.com.