Norton Statement on the Passing of Isaac “Ike” Fulwood
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) issued the following statement on the passing of former Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Isaac Fulwood Jr., who continued his service after his retirement from MPD as chair of the U.S. Parole Commission, appointed by President Obama on the recommendation of Norton, and as chair of her District of Columbia Commission on Black Men and Boys.
"With the passing of former MPD Chief Isaac ‘Ike' Fulwood, D.C. has lost a lifelong public servant who never stopped serving his hometown. D.C. needed a tough chief in the 1990s, and it got one in Ike Fulwood, who became chief during the national crack cocaine crime wave, which was especially serious in D.C. Yet, during these tough times, Ike Fulwood became a father of community policing, a natural offshoot of his life working in our neighborhoods. The Chief, as I always called him, grew up in D.C. and rose in the ranks from neighborhood beat cop to chief. As Chief, Ike Fulwood not only locked up a record number of residents, he cultivated his deep interest in keeping young people out of trouble.
"When Barack Obama became president, I believed our retired police chief would be a perfect chair of the U.S. Parole Commission, which serves D.C. residents. In his service from 2009 – 2015, the chief proved me right. He put in place innovative approaches that showed what he had learned from years of working the streets. Instead of treating every supervision violation as cause for reincarceration, the chief initiated a protocol of graduated sanctions to not only penalize what often began as minor supervision infractions, but also, importantly, to encourage incentive-based compliance. Another of his innovations was a mental health docket. Ike Fulwood recognized that what many supervisees needed to avoid recidivism was access to mental health providers.
"After his retirement, the Chief's unique insights from a career in law enforcement and a lifetime of valuable, acute observations led me to ask him to chair our D.C. Commission on Black Men and Boys, which I established in 2001. The Chief's understanding of young Black men was what our city needed. Building on the Chief's success with the D.C. Commission, Congressman Danny Davis (D-IL) and I established a Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys in 2012.
"Ike Fulwood's career in locking people up led him to its antithesis—deterring residents from trouble and prison. It would be difficult to find a resident whose service has been as deep and lasting as the Chief's."