Community Outreach

Part of the Office of Police Complaints' mission is to increase awareness throughout the District of Columbia about the agency, its purpose, and the process for filing a police misconduct complaint against Metropolitan Police Department and DC Housing Authority Police Department officers. To help increase awareness, the Office of Police Complaints (OPC) conducts and takes part in a variety of community outreach activities that allow members of the Police Complaints Board (PCB) and OPC staff to communicate information about the agency. OPC also has informational materials about the agency that are available on the OPC website or that can be requested from the office.

Some of the community outreach activities that OPC has conducted or taken part in include presentations to citizen organizations, neighborhood and community associations, high schools, universities, professional organizations, and police groups. OPC also has taken part in forums, festivals, and other gatherings where it could distribute information about the agency.

To make the OPC's services accessible to non-English speaking members of the District's diverse population, OPC has prepared complaint forms and informational materials in thirteen languages other than English. These materials are available in Arabic, Chinese Mandarin, French, German, Haitian Creole, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.

OPC welcomes invitations or requests that help fulfill its mission of increasing awareness about the agency and its purpose, and the office will work to accommodate as many invitations and requests as possible. If you or your organization is interested in arranging for a speaker to attend an event, or if you wish to obtain informational materials about the agency, please contact Nykisha Cleveland, OPC's Public Affairs Specialist at (202) 727-3838.