Metropolitan Police Department: Chief Ramsey Welcomes Twenty-Seven New Officers to the MPDC-Page 1

Chief Charles H. Ramsey delivered the following remarks during graduation ceremonies for Metropolitan Police Department Recruit Class 2000-6, held at the Bureau of Engraving auditorium in Southwest DC, on April 20, 2001. Twenty-seven new officers were sworn in during the event.

To the members of Recruit Class 2000-6, I say welcome to the policing profession, welcome to the MPDC, and welcome to the law enforcement family. Today's ceremony reflects our commitment to fight crime and improve the quality of life in the District of Columbia - not just by increasing the number of police officers in our agency, but also by bringing fresh ideas and new perspectives to our Department.

Your class is a diverse one. Some of you are just getting started with your careers - others have worked in other fields, and are just now getting into policing. Many of you always wanted to be a police officer - others found this calling later in your careers. Many of you were born and raised in this area - others come to us from places such as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Newark, New Jersey, and elsewhere. But regardless of your background or the extent of your work or educational experience, each of you does bring new ideas, new perspectives and new energy to our mission - a mission to prevent crime and build safe and healthy neighborhoods.

Each of you is a valuable addition to this organization - this family - and I wish all of you great success, challenge and personal fulfillment in your career with us. This is, without a doubt, the very best job - and the very best agency - in the world for anyone who wants to make a difference as a police officer ... and I welcome you once again.

Because we are all part of the same family, we all necessarily share the same goals and objectives, and the same set of guiding principles for achieving those goals and objectives. These bedrock principles of our profession are captured - succinctly, eloquently and powerfully - in the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics.

It is not a coincidence that the Code is printed in today's program book. The Code is the dozen or so sentences - four paragraphs in all - that all of us recite at the very beginning of our law enforcement training. And then, on occasions such as this, we have the opportunity to re-affirm our commitment to the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics at various times throughout our careers. Sometimes, I think it is easy to take these words, and the ideals behind them, for granted. But today - as each of you begins your career with the Metropolitan Police Department - I think it is certainly appropriate and important for us to take a deeper look at the Code of Ethics and just what this Code means to each of us, as police officers in this city, at this time.

The Code starts off with a simple, but extremely powerful statement: "As a law enforcement officer, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind, to safeguard lives and property." That statement is crystal clear about one thing: our job - first and foremost - is to serve others. Forty years ago, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy challenged Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Today - and every day of the year - police officers live out President Kennedy's famous call for serving others. Service to other people - often in unusual, stressful, or very dangerous circumstances - is the fundamental thing that we do as police officers. And this bedrock principle is captured right there in the very first line of our Code of Ethics.

So who is it that you will serve as a police officer and especially as a member of this Department? Obviously, you will serve everyone who is in need of your service ... without hesitation, prejudice or malice. As police officers, we can never pick and choose who will receive our service and who will not. And we must always strive to provide the same high-quality service to everyone. Being totally fair and free of bias is central to our profession - this can be no wavering from this ideal.

That said, the Code of Ethics does make it clear that you can expect to spend a great deal of your time serving the most vulnerable in our society. "Protecting the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression and intimidation, and the peaceful against violence or disorder." Who but these people will need your services the most?