Peter Newsham – Chief of Police Metropolitan Police Department

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Chief Peter Newsham, Chief of Police Metropolitan Police Department when asked about his predecessor former Chief of Police Cathy Lanier ~

“. . .whenever one of our officers comes up and they tell me a story similar to some of the things that Chief Lanier had to go through when she was an officer, I immediately think of Chief Lanier. You know what I mean? I take it very, very seriously. Nobody should have to go through some of the things that she had to go through in her career.”

Andy Ockershausen: This is Our Town. We are so delighted and we think it’s an honor to welcome the Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, Peter Newsham. Chief welcome to Our Town.
Chief Peter Newsham: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Andy Ockershausen: You know you have such a storied career. You haven’t been in Washington that long but you love Our Town obviously. You could have gone many places but you’re from the Massachusetts area.

On Growing Up in Massachusetts – Once a Red Sox and Patriots Fan, always a . . .

Chief Peter Newsham: I am. I grew up in Massachusetts. Both my parents actually grew up I Providence Rhode Island. They moved out to Massachusetts to raise a family.
Andy Ockershausen: Smart.
Chief Peter Newsham: There’s eight of us. My mom actually for each of us she went back to her doctor in Providence where we were born. I was born in Providence Rhode Island but grew up in Massachusetts.
Andy Ockershausen: We love Providence. We love Massachusetts. Janice was born in Newport. But she has relatives … we visited them up there last year. Providence has exploded to me. I haven’t been there in years. But I love New England and then getting to go to college must have been great thing for you.
Chief Peter Newsham: Oh it was. My mom always wanted me to go to law school so I had to go to college first to accomplish that task. It took me a little longer than most to kind of, I guess, get through my education because I got my law degree while I was here on the police department.
Andy Ockershausen: In Worcester. . .There was a small town you grew up in right? Outside of …
Chief Peter Newsham: I grew up in Weymouth Massachusetts …
Andy Ockershausen: Weymouth, yeah.
Chief Peter Newsham: … which is south of Boston about 15-20 minutes south of Boston. Then in high school, my father who actually worked for the power company got a job in Westborough Massachusetts and we ended moving out to Shrewsbury, which borders Worcester Massachusetts.
Andy Ockershausen: I know Worcester very well. That’s beautiful country. We have friends in a place you may not have heard of before. It’s not Newport Beach, its Newport Harbor or something like that, that we visit. We love New England.
Janice Iacona Ockershausen: Westport. It’s in Adams.
Chief Peter Newsham: Oh nice.
Andy Ockershausen: Adams Mass right? It’s right on the border.
Janice Iacona Ockershausen: Right on the border.
Chief Peter Newsham: One of the difficult things about being a transplant from Massachusetts and you can probably relate to this is that we stay kind of Red Sox and Patriots fans. A lot of Redskins fans aren’t real crazy about that. I adopted the Redskins as my National League …
Andy Ockershausen: You have to when you’re here obviously that’s true. The people that preceded you all were Redskin fans. We know that. I know that you came up with Chief Ramsey.

Chief Ramsey, Assistant Chief of Police Terry Gainer, WMAL and Washington Redskins

Chief Peter Newsham: I did.
Andy Ockershausen: Chuck Ramsey, a great friend of WMAL.
Chief Peter Newsham: Truth be told though Andy, I work very closely with Chuck Ramsey. He was a die hard Cubs and …
Andy Ockershausen: Chicago.
Chief Peter Newsham: … Bears fan yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: He bled Illinois I know that.
Chief Peter Newsham: He did.
Andy Ockershausen: So did his partner he brought with him. What was … Terry Gaynor.
Chief Peter Newsham: Terry Gainer.
Andy Ockershausen: Terry Gainer was very good to me and to our company when he was Assistant Police Chief. Then he went on to Capitol Hill and was very good to us.
Chief Peter Newsham: Right.
Andy Ockershausen: As a matter of fact, we used to do editorials on WMAL and we criticized congress years ago about all the parking places. The criticism … he took all our parking away. Our cars had no place to park cause they were mad at our editorial about their parking. But the city’s grown up since then. Going to Holy Cross, you have a lot of famous graduates of The Cross.

Holy Cross Alum – Bob Cousy

Chief Peter Newsham: We do. Yeah. Clarence Thomas, Bob Cousy, I told you …
Andy Ockershausen: Ricky made him a Celtic.
Chief Peter Newsham: I have a great, great story for one of your local newscasters, Gordon Peterson.
Andy Ockershausen: Oh yeah.
Chief Peter Newsham: It relates to Bob Cousy. One of the times and I can’t remember what year it was, I was flying up to the New England area. I was probably flying into T. F. Green, which was just outside of Providence.
Andy Ockershausen: We know it well we were just up there.
Is it a bird, a plane, Bob Cousy . . . No it’s Gordon Peterson
Chief Peter Newsham: There was a guy that was on my flight and I recognized him. He kept standing up during the course of the flight to go into the baggage to get into his bag and I’m like I know that guy. Who the heck is that guy?
Andy Ockershausen: You were out of uniform?
Chief Peter Newsham: I was out of uniform, completely unrecognizable. I may have been an officer or a sargent or a lieutenant at the time. I don’t remember. As I’m leaving the plane, the guy is still there. I’m walking by and it dawns on me who he is and I said Hey, you’re Bob Cousy. It was Gordon Peterson.
Andy Ockershausen: I bet he loved that.
Chief Peter Newsham: He looked at me like I had two heads. It was kind of funny.
Andy Ockershausen: Cousy worked for ABC television, he did the basketball and he had the worst accent. He’d mispronounce names, but that was Cousy. What a great player.
Chief Peter Newsham: I was very excited about having the chance to meet Bob Cousy too. Not as excited to meet Gordon Peterson, but still.
Andy Ockershausen: You still keep in touch with Gordon.
Chief Peter Newsham: I don’t know if he’ll remember that story. He may, some stranger on a plane.
Andy Ockershausen: We’ll find out. He’s coming in here in two weeks. He likes to be called Bill Peterson. That’s a way people don’t bother him as Gordon Peterson. Do you remember Gordon Peterson?
Speaker: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Andy Ockershausen: What a great broadcaster and a great guy too. Well geez, so you had the opportunity to go to school at a great Jesuit University. What put you in the police department? Why didn’t you become a lawyer?

My Mom wanted me to be a lawyer so I became a DC police officer

Chief Peter Newsham: Well it’s interesting. I was a political science major. Initially I was an accounting major, which was very easy for me but also wasn’t interesting to me. Political science was very interesting to me. Where do all good political science majors go when they graduate? Washington D.C. right?
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Chief Peter Newsham: Try and get a job on Capitol Hill, and so I came down here and I was looking for jobs on The Hill and the jobs didn’t pay very well and they required very long hours. I couldn’t afford to do that. I saw where they were hiring a bunch of police officers for the Metropolitan Police Department. I said you know what, and I had some family that were in policing. I ended up joining the police department. I always tell people this. It’s the best decision I ever made in my life. Really was.
Andy Ockershausen: Well obviously. You got to the top of the heap. It wasn’t easy.

Law Enforcement and Serving to the Community – Then and Now

Chief Peter Newsham: You know, it really was never and I tell people this as well and they never believe me. It was never really my desire to be the Chief of Police. I really enjoy the job. I loved the job from day one. I think the job is really important. I think law enforcement in our country is really kinda gotten an unfair …
Andy Ockershausen: We agree with you all the way on that.
Chief Peter Newsham: … bad name. I’m very, very happy that the mayor has selected me to lead the agency that I love the most.
Andy Ockershausen: You came up through the ranks. Were you a patrol officer at one time? You did the street?
Chief Peter Newsham: I was. It was … I tell young people this all the time. It was really, really fun. If you talk to some of our young officers, they’ll tell you the same thing. Being a police officer in this city, it’s a great job. You’re almost like very excited to go to work if you can imagine that. You probably have the same experience here. When you’re getting ready to come in …
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Chief Peter Newsham: … do a podcast you feel all energized and ready to come in. That’s the way it was as a young police officer. I tell my recruits graduating from the academy all the time, everything you see in movies and everything you see on television about policing, forget it. That’s not what policing is all about. Policing is a service profession and that’s what we do. If we can get young people who are interested in helping people in a service profession, we’re hiring and we’d be happy to have them.
Andy Ockershausen: The controversy was in the post last week about how many officers you need and some of the Council think you need more but you think it’s comfortable. Of course the Council likes to get people appointed too. They get more jobs, you get more votes. We understand Council. They’re wonderful. We love the City Council. We use to love them more when Carol Schwartz was on.
Talking about police work, I remember the cop on the beat that all the guys when I was growing up, we knew people on the street. They weren’t all riding in squad cars. A lot of them were walking. That’s why they got the name flatfoot.
Chief Peter Newsham: Yep.
Andy Ockershausen: You remember that.
Chief Peter Newsham: That’s true. That’s true.
Andy Ockershausen: But to know the neighborhood cop was so important.
Chief Peter Newsham: Yeah and that’s one of the things we’re trying to get new younger officers to understand is that that relationship with the community is literally the most important thing in policing is to know the folks in your community because those are the folks that are going to help you when you need it. Those are the folks that are gonna give you information when something goes wrong in the community.
When you’re young you watch a lot of TV, you watch a lot of movies …
Andy Ockershausen: Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Chief Peter Newsham: … you kinda think that’s what police do. We gotta kinda change the mindset and say listen. You gotta go out there and meet people. You gotta talk to people. When you need folks, if they don’t know you, they’re not gonna be too interested in helping you.
Andy Ockershausen: That is so true.
Chief Peter Newsham: But if you know them by name, guess what? They gonna stand up for you. They gonna give you information.
Andy Ockershausen: They can arrest you too. That’s another story. We’re talking to the Chief of Police, Peter Newsham. The new … a year ago but confirmed in January as the Chief of Police of the MPD. This is Andy Ockershausen and this is Our Town.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town.
Andy Ockershausen This is Andy Ockershausen and this is Our Town. Having a great conversation with Peter Newsham. Talking about knowing the policemen. How important it was in my life because of our neighborhood. I was arrested with a bunch of guys in my neighborhood playing football in the street. Throwing the ball. They were afraid of breaking some windows so they put us in a squad car, took us down to Number 9 Precinct. My mother came down to get me out. She wasn’t mad at me. She was mad at the policeman. She raised hell to get the boys off. They playing football in the street. That doesn’t happen anymore. That’s all the place we had to play. Northeast Washington.
Chief Peter Newsham: Right.
Andy Ockershausen: Maurice Cullinane was in that precinct later. Later, remember Cullinane was a patrolman.
Chief Peter Newsham: Of course. It goes to show you how policing has really changed. Nowadays if you see a police officer and they’re out there playing football with some kids on the street, you’ll see it all over Twitter, all over social media.
Andy Ockershausen: I’m sure of that.
Chief Peter Newsham: There’s a lot to be said for that too. To let young people know that the police are human.
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Chief Peter Newsham: Being able to develop that relationship with kids at a young age is really important for us. There is, like I said, policing has got kind of a bad name out there for being the bad guys …
Andy Ockershausen: It’s unintentional.
Chief Peter Newsham: The men and women of the Metropolitan Police I can tell you by and large are out there doing really good things, helping people every single day.
Andy Ockershausen: The police were positively right. We shouldn’t have been playing cause those balls could break a window. Then everybody takes off.
Chief Peter Newsham: I don’t think we would arrest kids today for playing football. I heard that you were half way decent football player back in the day.
Andy Ockershausen: The great part about it, the police captain was named Richard Mansfield, Dick Mansfield, he was a friend of my mothers. They grew up together. That’s how small Our Town was. Our Town was a lot of people together. It’s changed because everything’s changed Peter. We’re all victims of a new world and I think the new world has been ruined by social media. That’s a personal additive. I think radio could have saved us but it’s gone now. Anything that happens, everybody knows about it. It used to be 24 hours. Now its 24 seconds. It’s changed the world.

Our Town – “a small big town”

Chief Peter Newsham: But you know what strikes me about our city though, which is really kind of awesome. It is a small city. It’s a small big town. I go around the city and I’ve only been here maybe 30 years but I can’t go anywhere where I don’t know somebody in this city.
Andy Ockershausen: No question.
Chief Peter Newsham: It’s not just because I’m the Chief of Police. When I was Assistant Chief of Police, under Cathy Lanier, I could go to any community and always you see the same faces all the time in Washington, D.C. It’s really kind of one of the great things about Washington D.C.
Andy Ockershausen: There are people that care about Our Town that show up.
Chief Peter Newsham: It’s incredible. Some of the people that I come across in policing and like I said I go to community meetings all of the time. I’ll be going to one tonight. I got to two or three a week. You got some regulars that come out. The reason that they’re coming out is because they’re committed to our city. Even if I have a disagreement with them or they have an issue with the police department, how can you not admire those folks who are committed to our city and making it a better place.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s right. They care or they wouldn’t show up.
Chief Peter Newsham: Isn’t that nice.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s why I think Our Town is a lot smaller than people realize and you just pointed out. You know Washington is divided into many sections. There’s a military industrial people here. There’s a congress. The foreign service is here. But in addition to all that there’s a nucleus that run this town.
Chief Peter Newsham: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: They are the people that make it count and they work so hard. One of them is Heroes, as you know, and how important that has been to our community. I got into Heroes in 1964, that’s 50 years ago. I’m sorry Chief.
Chief Peter Newsham: You’re going to bring up a guy by the name of Bud Doggett I would think when you talk about Heroes.
Andy Ockershausen: There will never be another Bud Doggett.
Chief Peter Newsham: Yeah …
Andy Ockershausen: Not in my life.
Chief Peter Newsham: I’m not going to talk about any specific stories because they’re all terrible stories when we lose somebody, either a firefighter or a law enforcement officer.
Andy Ockershausen: Right.
Chief Peter Newsham: But this organization, Heroes, that you mentioned is incredible. The thing that struck me about my dealings with them is that their number one concern is the family member of the officer or the firefighter …
Andy Ockershausen: They are wonderful people.
Chief Peter Newsham: It’s unbelievable. Great people. Awesome people. Bud Doggett, his wife …
Andy Ockershausen: He started it.
Chief Peter Newsham: … Cherrie.
Andy Ockershausen: Cherrie’s picked it up.
Chief Peter Newsham: She’s picked it up and she’s been incredible. Hats off to that entire team.
Andy Ockershausen: We also had a great relationship. We, WMAL, but my friends here with your predecessor. I don’t think it’s an easy job following her. I think that’s a tough follow.

On Former Chief of Police Cathy Lanier and Women in Law Enforcement

Chief Peter Newsham: Oh yeah. She’s definitely a tough act to follow.
Andy Ockershausen: She was something else. That was tough being a woman when she was appointed, correct.
Chief Peter Newsham: ESPN just did a really good story on Cathy Lanier and if people haven’t had an opportunity to take a look at it, they should glance at it. It really kind of highlights some of the things she had to go through in her career as a woman in a male dominated profession. One of the things that … I got to know Cathy Lanier very well as one of her assistants. She would tell me some of the stories of some of the things she had to go through.
Andy Ockershausen: Unbelievable.
Chief Peter Newsham: It was incredible. One of the reporters who was asking me about the ESPN piece they were doing. I told them whenever one of our officers comes up and they tell me a story similar to some of the things that Chief Lanier had to go through when she was an officer, I immediately think of Chief Lanier. You know what I mean? I take it very, very seriously. Nobody should have to go through some of the things that she had to go through in her career. The last thing I’ll say about her … when she got promoted the mayor at the time Fenty selected her over some more senior people in the …
Andy Ockershausen: Correct.
Chief Peter Newsham: … organization. She was a young commander and she probably was not ready to be the …
Andy Ockershausen: I’m sure that’s correct.
Chief Peter Newsham: … Chief of Police. She probably tell you that if …
Andy Ockershausen: She did.
Chief Peter Newsham: … she was sitting here.
Andy Ockershausen: She just wasn’t ready. I never knew what I was going to run into.
Chief Peter Newsham: Let me tell you what. The one thing that she had that other chiefs probably didn’t have is you could never outwork her. Hardest working person I ever worked for.
Andy Ockershausen: 24/7 right?
Chief Peter Newsham: She was incredible.
Andy Ockershausen: I knew Ramsey was very fond of her too when he was the chief.
Chief Peter Newsham: He was.
Andy Ockershausen: She got a lot of help. But being a female in a high profile job … I thought she’s extremely attractive. She still is. You know everybody’s trying to hit on her if they are anything at all that I’ve heard about. But times have changed Peter. That whole society’s changed now.
Chief Peter Newsham: It has and you know … I told this to the folks at ESPN too when they asked me. I never really looked at Cathy Lanier as a woman. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. I always looked at her as my boss …
Andy Ockershausen: Right.
Chief Peter Newsham: … when I worked for her. I had the utmost admiration for her work ethic. She did not have any fear. When you’re in this job as a chief and other chief’s can relate to this, there are some challenging times. They are some times when it seems like the whole world is stacked against you.
Andy Ockershausen: You’re out there alone sometimes right?
Chief Peter Newsham: Yeah you’re always at least 50% wrong on all the decisions you make because 50% of the people disagree with you but she never blinked. She never blinked as the chief, even through some of the tougher times that we faced. Hats off to her. She’s doing very well. I see her …
Andy Ockershausen: NFL a very good job.
Chief Peter Newsham: … yeah and NFL will be a lot safer for it.
Andy Ockershausen: I’m sure of that. She’s such a good, good person. We’re talking to Peter Newsham. We’re going to take a break here now and in the final segment we’re going to talk to Peter about his job. We haven’t really gotten into that yet but we’re going to get into that. This is Andy Ockershausen and this is Our Town.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town with Andy Ockershausen. Brought to you by Best Bark Communications.
Andy Ockershausen: This is Our Town. It’s Andy Ockershausen and delightfully so we’re having a conversation with the chief of the metropolitan police department. One of the things that we brag about at WMAL is our relationship with the police. In so many ways, police boys and girls club, I was on the Board forever as I’m on the Board with Heroes and other things. We had our own helicopter. We paid for it. We owned it. We provided the helicopter. The police provided a sargent in the traffic detail to fly. It was unheard of in Our Town. He got so good he got promoted to Lieutenant and they took him off the detail. Those were the early days and we had our own chopper and had big pontoons on it. It could land in the river.
Chief Peter Newsham: Yep.
Andy Ockershausen: The police department loved it. Nobody else had it.
Chief Peter Newsham: It sounds like it. That’s one of those we talk about community policing. When you talk about the community, community is everybody. It’s WMAL, it’s our students, it’s our visitors to our city, it’s our homeless folks who are part of our community. Everybody can contribute and that sounds to to me one of those early community relationships where you helped us.
Andy Ockershausen: Exactly what it was.
Chief Peter Newsham: Yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: The only one that was in the country was in Chicago. We went there and copied their police and how they put it together.
Chief Peter Newsham: If you think about it, that service of being able to tell people where traffic jams are is invaluable to people. People have to get to work. They have to be there on time. To know when that kind of thing is happening, people underappreciated it.
Andy Ockershausen: Chief you’re so absolutely right. It’s been a great service. Now they do it on television. They warn you before you leave home what to look for, which is important. Ours was instant. They would hover over a problem and talk to people and sometimes land cause they had those pontoons. They could land anywhere.
Chief I think that one of the problems in our community, this is an editorial on my part. I don’t think the police can be responsible for all the things they’re responsible for. The community’s got to step up. I think a lot of the guns and the murder rate that we have, the community’s gotta stop it. The police cannot do that whole job.

On Challenges Facing Law Enforcement Today

Chief Peter Newsham: I think that’s part of it and I also think, you and I have had this conversation is that policing in America is operating under a microscope. There’s been a very bright light shined on policing in our country and I think in a leadership position in policing, I’m 100% okay with that. That scrutiny is really important for policing. I also think there’s some other parts of the criminal justice system that you need to have a similar bright light shined on them. There are some decisions in my opinion that are being made that impact public safety that are not getting the attention that policing, for example, is getting.
We have focused in the district on reducing violent crime. If you knew about some of the repeat violent offenders that we have out here and some of the decisions that have been made regarding them, I think people would be very concerned about some of those decisions that are being made.
Andy Ockershausen: The courts and it’s not just Washington. I think that’s true all over the country. I hear of that anyway.
Chief Peter Newsham: It’s everybody in the system and I’m not going to point fingers at any particular group but I do think that and maybe the decisions are right. There’s positions on both sides. There’s defense attorneys, there’s prosecutors and everyone has a different idea but I think that ultimately the community should be aware when those decisions are being made. One example I’ll give you is that so far this year in 2017, more than 17 people that we have arrested for murder, in our city just this year, were under some type of supervision at the time they committed the murder. I think that me, Pete Newsham personally, I would question the level of that supervision if they were able to go out there and take somebody’s life.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s incredible, 17?
Chief Peter Newsham: Yeah. If you think about it, that’s 17 families that have lost a loved one.
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Chief Peter Newsham: Those are communities. Whenever somebody is murdered in the District of Columbia, you have the family obviously that’s impacted, but an entire community. To have somebody killed on a city street in your neighborhood is impacted by those things. I welcome the scrutiny on policing in America. I particularly welcome the scrutiny on our police department here in Washington D.C. But I think that people really need to pay close attention to some of these other decisions that are being made.

Support of DC City Council

Andy Ockershausen: I did recall in your hearings before you got the permanent job, that there was a lot of criticism but everybody in the Council, it seems to me, ended up praising you and what you have done and what you have brought to the force. That didn’t mean they didn’t like Cathy, it just that this is different. Peter’s going to be different and we’re gonna support him.
Chief Peter Newsham: Right.
Andy Ockershausen: You only lost one vote right?
Chief Peter Newsham: Really.
Andy Ockershausen: That guy’s a . . .
Chief Peter Newsham: I tell everybody that … I’d mentioned this when I was sworn in because my family was there, a lot of my friends, is that …
Andy Ockershausen: They came from Worcester?
Chief Peter Newsham: Exactly. When David Grosso was running for re-election, I didn’t vote for him either.
Andy Ockershausen: Neither would I. Believe me.
Chief Peter Newsham: I guess we’re even.
Andy Ockershausen: The council does a good job. That’s not easy for them either. They get a lot of bricks thrown at them, and they probably deserve it.
Chief Peter Newsham: They do an incredible job. They really do. In balancing the needs of the community. I’ve seen them be put on the hot seat from time to time too so I can appreciate what they go through.
Andy Ockershausen: Well before there was this council, there was a triumvirate, a trio of people that decided our city. Our Town. It wasn’t elected. They were appointed by Congress and various other people. The change has been great and the governments. Starting with Marion Berry … no way before Marion Berry, Walter Washington was a prince of a man. A perfect job for a perfect guy and then he was followed by a lot of politicians. Walter wasn’t … he was a public servant, not a politician. The politicians then came and the world changed. It changed for the good. I think it’s great. We love Our Town chief and we love you.
Chief Peter Newsham: Thank you. Thank you. You’re so kind.
Andy Ockershausen: We’re so glad that you’re here.
Chief Peter Newsham: I’m very happy to be here and I look forward to doing whatever I can to continue our relationship.
Andy Ockershausen: You will because we love Jesuits. As a matter of fact I was talking to a priest, he wasn’t a priest, he was bigger than a priest and I said are you a Jesuit and he said no I’m a Catholic. That’s an additive but I love Jesuits. Georgetown, I found this out the hard way, the oldest Catholic institution in America is right here in your back yard.
Chief Peter Newsham: Oh okay and that’s Georgetown.
Andy Ockershausen: Georgetown. That incredible?
Chief Peter Newsham: I was out there out in Georgetown last night.
Andy Ockershausen: Over there on M street?
Chief Peter Newsham: The crowds, yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: That used to be so great to have the parades and the awards and everything. I stopped going downtown Chief at night. Although I did see your deputy is now running the wharf right? She’s security chief.

The Wharf and Harbor Patrol

Chief Peter Newsham: That’s right. Diane Grooms, another one of our police leaders is down there at the Wharf. I don’t know if anyone’s had an opportunity to go down to the wharf recently, but it’s beautiful down there. It’s really kind of made the waterfront look great.
Andy Ockershausen: The wharf, you’ve gotta see it in the back. You just can’t look at the front of it. Get out back. What they’ve done is … I got the story on Hoffman that built it. He’s going to do the phase two now.
Chief Peter Newsham: Oh nice.
Andy Ockershausen: Another billion two.
Chief Peter Newsham: That’s right.
Andy Ockershausen: Are gonna go in phases. Going right up next to your office down there. The patrol, the border patrol.
Janice Iacona Ockershausen: The water patrol.
Chief Peter Newsham: Harbor …
Andy Ockershausen: Harbor patrol right.
Chief Peter Newsham: Yep.
Andy Ockershausen: That ain’t a bad job either.
Chief Peter Newsham: You’re right though. You’ve gotta see it from the other side.
Andy Ockershausen: You have to.
Chief Peter Newsham: You don’t want to just look at it from Maine Avenue. If you don’t want to go down Maine Avenue there’s really no reason. Everyone anticipated all kinds of traffic problems. We really haven’t seen that. Just go over to Hains Point and you can look over at the beautiful waterfront.
Andy Ockershausen: You can take the little water taxi too.
Chief Peter Newsham: Exactly.
Andy Ockershausen: We’re doing a commercial here for the Wharf because … I think what the Wharf has brought to Our Town is sensational. What the Yard has brought to southwest, southeast its [inaudible 00:25:40]. Our town’s just exploding and you’re helping it chief. Thank you very much.
Chief Peter Newsham: The last thing we have to do too is get the Redskins back, right. Isn’t that the last piece to the puzzle.
Andy Ockershausen: The last part of the puzzle is this and I’ll tell you this and all, the Redskins have not won anything since they left WMAL radio.
Chief Peter Newsham: There you go.
Andy Ockershausen: That is in the record. Now they came back this year and they’re paying it. But the days that we did the broadcast, the fact is they won three Super Bowls. They went to five. They won three of them, since they left WMAL for money things changed.
Chief Peter Newsham: Get them back in D.C. Get them back on WMAL and then …
Andy Ockershausen: Now we’ve got to find out what we’re going to do with the quarterback but that’s another problem. Peter Newsham you are a delightful man and such a great part of our town and we’re here for you. Whatever we can do, we will do.
Chief Peter Newsham: I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you guys.
Andy Ockershausen: We love you. Thanks for all of the people you work for in the government and Mark Toohey is a special man.
Chief Peter Newsham: Oh yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: He brought baseball to Washington. Now we want him to bring football to Washington.
Chief Peter Newsham: Exactly. I’m going to tell Mark you said that next time I see him.
Andy Ockershausen: Please do. Thank you Peter. This is Andy Ockershausen. This has been Our Town. We’ll be back with another show.
Announcer: You’ve been listening to Our Town Season Three, presented by GEICO, our hometown favorite, with your host, Andy Ockershausen. Ne Our Town episodes are released each Tuesday and Thursday. Drop us a line with your comments or suggestions. See us on Facebook, or visit our website at ourtowndc.com. Our special thanks to Ken Hunter, our technical director, and WMAL radio in Washington DC for hosting our podcast, and thanks to GEICO. 15 minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance.