Carlos Kelly’s relatively brief tenure as chief of the University of the District of Columbia’s police department was rocky, to say the least.
In less than a year as UDC’s top cop, he rearranged the schedule to avoid the need for overtime shifts, eliminated a contract for extra campus security, and rooted out alleged time theft among the ranks, saving the university about $1 million in the past year, by his own estimates.
He investigated multiple officers for misconduct—issuing discipline and, in the worst cases, terminations. Other problematic officers resigned in lieu of termination, he says.
The reforms he implemented did not sit well with at least some of the force. Multiple officers filed complaints against Kelly and circulated a dossier seeking to discredit his credentials, education, and work history. One of his subordinates, a lieutenant who was later fired, was secretly recorded saying about Kelly, “If I see that n—r on the street, I’m going to punch him in the mouth,” Kelly says.
But when Kelly showed up to UDC’s annual oversight hearing in March to testify in front of the D.C. Council concerning the corruption he’d uncovered, much of his focus was on the university’s chief operating officer, David Franklin, who happened to be sitting behind him in the hearing room that day.
“The cover-up is worse than the crime,” Kelly said.
He described how he had uncovered evidence that a sergeant had been stealing time from the university and that he notified Franklin of his intention to take the information to the Office of the Inspector General. Franklin instructed him to wait until the two had a chance to talk about it in person, Kelly says, but then Franklin “canceled every single solitary meeting” for the next four and a half months.
As he grew more and more frustrated, Kelly requested a meeting with UDC President Maurice Edington.
“The day I was supposed to meet with the president,” Kelly testified, “I was terminated.”
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Kelly was hired as police chief and director of public safety in March of 2024. He wasn’t officially sworn in until last May, and by February of this year, he was fired without a specific explanation.
Along with his testimony in front of Council Chair Phil Mendelson’s Committee of the Whole, Kelly wrote a summary of the alleged time theft, workplace misconduct, and corruption that he uncovered during his brief tenure at UDC.
The 13-page document, which was also submitted to the Council, describes how some entrenched officers bullied and berated subordinates, manipulated the shift schedule for their own benefit, and bucked at his attempts to reform the department.
In the document and in his testimony, Kelly focuses in particular on Sgt. Scott Thompson, who last year earned nearly $57,000 in overtime—the most of any UDC employee, according to information the university provided to the Council. Ten of the top 15 overtime earners at UDC were police officers in fiscal year 2024, according to the university; they were paid a total of $252,962 in overtime.
Kelly sought to address the issue by switching to 12-hours shifts, which “significantly reduced reliance on overtime and improved scheduling fairness,” Kelly writes in the document he gave to the Council.
But two lieutenants who were put in charge of creating the schedule circumvented Kelly’s reform “by creating a specialized position for Sgt. Scott Thompson, allowing him to continue working 8-hour shifts while being disproportionately assigned overtime,” Kelly continues. “Despite the lack of actual need for these additional hours, they continued to manipulate the system for personal gain, effectively stealing time from the university.”
Kelly says Thompson was investigated for nine complaints that included accusations of harassment, bullying, and creating a hostile work environment. In one emailed complaint shared with City Paper, an officer informed Kelly that he intended to stay home from work due to Thompson’s alleged bullying. “I can’t continue to work with Sgt. Thompson because of his attitude, abuse, unprofessional choice of words, and he makes me feel very uncomfortable,” the officer writes.
Kelly says Thompson frequently referred to his “friends on the third floor,” suggesting that he had connections to Franklin’s office that could shield him from consequences. On at least one occasion, Kelly says Thompson threatened to have him fired.
Following an investigation into Thompson’s alleged misconduct, UDC’s human resources department recommended termination. Kelly says Franklin disagreed and overruled the recommendation. When HR reduced the discipline to a demotion to patrol officer, Franklin interjected again, according to internal emails obtained by City Paper. Thompson was instead given a nine-day suspension without pay and was ordered to attend anger management classes, emails show.
By the time Thompson’s suspension was finalized, Kelly had uncovered evidence that the sergeant had been falsifying his time cards and stealing time from the university.
In a memo dated Nov. 5, Kelly describes hearing Thompson announce over the radio that he was en route to his assigned post at 10:02 p.m. when he was supposed to arrive at 10. Kelly asked him to radio again when he had officially arrived at work, and Thompson did so at 10:34 p.m.
The dispatcher “informed me that it was common for Sergeant Thompson to report in this manner,” Kelly says in the memo. “He often claims to be enroute while not arriving at work on time—sometimes as late as 30 minutes after his scheduled shift.”
A few days later, Kelly says Thompson submitted a request to “retroactively change his timecard to allocate half an hour of sick leave for his tardiness.” (Bold included in Kelly’s memo.)
“This request indicates admission of guilt and demonstrates premeditation regarding his actions,” Kelly writes. When he dug into Thompson’s time cards, he found more discrepancies.
“Supporting documentation includes several time sheets indicating he did not report his late arrivals, CAD entries confirming his late arrivals, audio recordings of radio communications, and video evidence of his arrival time on campus,” the memo says.
In an email, Thompson says the allegations of time theft and favoritism are “false and untrue,” and he says he “was not terminated, charged, or under investigation” by UDC.
“Therefore, if you decide to print this story, I would air [sic] on the side of caution,” he adds, suggesting that City Paper reach out to Franklin and Edington, the UDC president.
Thompson included in his email a long letter with several accusations against Kelly that are similar to those filed in a complaint with the university last summer. The letter accuses Kelly of embellishing his resume, instructing an officer to walk his dog while at work, and hiring an officer with a history of misconduct. Kelly provided City Paper with a document that he says came from UDC’s HR department, which says in part: “The allegations made by the anonymous group of individuals are unfounded.”
“Several of the allegations appear to stem from disgruntled employees, including lieutenants and sergeants, who are resistant to changes the Chief is implementing,” the purported HR document says.
Franklin did not respond to an emailed request for an interview. Instead, UDC’s assistant director of media relations, Rachel Perrone, replied, saying, “Unfortunately we’re not able to comment on ongoing investigations or personnel matters.” She did not respond to a follow-up email asking what investigation she was referring to.
Kelly says the university’s human resources department interviewed Thompson about the alleged time theft, and Thompson resigned the next day. But Kelly still felt compelled to get some outside guidance. He told Franklin that he intended to report the time theft to the inspector general’s office, but the COO instructed him not to take any action until the two of them had a chance to discuss it. That’s when, Kelly says, Franklin canceled a series of meetings with him for the next four and a half months.
“He was ducking me,” Kelly says. “No one’s that damn busy that for five months every meeting you schedule, you cancel.”
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At the end of Kelly’s testimony in March, he said he hoped that by alerting the Council, lawmakers would explore whether there’s a deeper issue. “There may be other people who have been retaliated against,” he said during the hearing.
Mendelson thanked him for his testimony and then moved on. As Kelly left the witness table, Edington and Franklin replaced him.
When Mendelson asked them about the university’s allotment of overtime for its cops, Edington praised Kelly’s efforts to address the issue by changing the schedule.
“I believe that that is going to lead to a significant reduction in those overtime hours,” Edington said. “It continues to be an issue with the police officers in terms of the need to have them work. But it’s something that we’re working on to get that addressed.”
Franklin told Mendelson that they hoped to reduce the overtime hours by hiring more officers. But even when they are able to bring on new recruits, UDC often has trouble retaining them because they don’t pay as well as other departments. At the time, UDC had 17 officers and seven vacancies.
Mendelson didn’t ask any questions about Kelly’s claims of time theft or Franklin’s alleged interference with the disciplinary process before he excused the UDC executives.
He says in a recent interview that he forwarded Kelly’s allegations to the inspector general and followed up separately with Edington, who said the university has launched an investigation.
“It’s both understandable and disturbing that the university would not want to comment on this,” Mendelson says. “Disturbing because it allows the allegations to be unrefuted and if there are arguments against the allegations it would be helpful to the university if they would say more.”
Kelly says he hasn’t heard from the Council chair’s office, but he has filed complaints with the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability and the inspector general. In April, he says he was contacted by a UDC representative asking him to come in for an interview related to his whistleblower complaint where he claimed he was wrongly terminated.
Kelly sent an email to all 13 councilmembers, some agency heads, UDC employees, news organizations, and others about UDC’s request for an interview. He says he asked to see the questions in advance and for time to find a lawyer, but was told the investigation would proceed without him. He tells City Paper that he has heard the university hired a new police chief, which he considers premature since they have not finished investigating his complaint.
“How can you do an investigation without the complaint [sic] participating,” he writes. “Is this the kind of leadership we expect from UDC?”
The email also includes details of two incidents involving UDC officers since he was fired. One officer was “caught driving drunk—over three times the legal limit—while on duty in a UDC patrol car, armed and in uniform,” he writes, adding that the officer was sent home with a family member rather than being arrested. Another officer was caught “driving over 80 mph in a 50 mph zone in a UDC cruiser.” Again, the officer wasn’t charged or disciplined, Kelly reports.
He calls on the UDC Board of Trustees, the Council, and the mayor to take a closer look at the university’s cops.
“I still haven’t talked to the president,” he tells City Paper. “These are serious allegations, and for you as the president of the university to still not reach out to me? That’s a problem. What are you scared of?”