Peter Newsham

Peter Newsham (born 1963 or 1964) was the Chief of Police of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD) from January 2017 to January 2021. He is currently Chief of the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia, having been appointed to that post in November 2020.

A veteran of the police department of Washington, D.C., since 1989, he participated in various capacities in numerous high-profile investigations and arrests, including the disappearance of Chandra Levy, the Washington Navy Yard shooting, and the murder of Seth Rich. He became the Chief of Police in January 2017, after having previously served as deputy to his predecessor, Police Chief Cathy Lanier. In November 2020, it was announced that Newsham would be leaving the District to become Chief of Police for nearby Prince William County, Virginia; he was succeeded in the District of Columbia in January 2021 by Robert Contee.

Newsham was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts. He attended North Adams State College (since renamed the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts) and received a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. After graduating, Newsham moved to Washington, D.C., with the intention of getting a job on Capitol Hill. Newsham never worked on Capitol Hill, and ended up applying to the Metropolitan Police Department.

In 1996, Newsham attended the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and earned his J.D. degree in 2000. As of 2020^[update], Newsham is a member in good standing of the Maryland and District of Columbia bars.

Newsham joined the Metropolitan Police Department in 1989. In the 1990s, Newsham was selected by then-Chief Charles H. Ramsey "to oversee a department overhaul after concerns surfaced in the late 1990s over the high number of deadly shootings by officers". In 2000 Chief Ramsey appointed Newsham Commander of the Second District. In April of that year he participated in the investigation of a high-profile shooting at the National Zoo. Newsham also participated in the investigation of the May 2001 disappearance of federal intern Chandra Levy. In April 2002, Newsham was reported to have "ordered police officers to cordon off Pershing Park, about two blocks from the White House, after he observed some protesters committing acts of vandalism". This was characterized by detractors of the decision as a mass arrests of protesters, with attorneys claiming protesters were arrested without any notice to disperse. The final settlement resulting from the case was $13.25 million.

In 2002, Chief Ramsey promoted Newsham to Assistant Chief and placed him in charge of the Office of Professional Responsibility, which includes the Internal Affairs Division, Civil Rights Division, and the Force Investigation Team.

In July 2004 Newsham was placed in charge of Regional Operations Command-North. In that capacity, Newsham reported in 2003 that the department had confirmed that a class of armor-piercing handguns that Congress was seeking to ban had been tested by the department and found to be capable of penetrating police body armor. In 2007, Newsham took over as Assistant Chief of the Internal Affairs Bureau. In 2008, Newsham oversaw the issuance by police of the first handgun permits in the District of Columbia in 32 years, following the ruling by the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down the District's ban on handgun ownership.

The following year, in 2009, Newsham was given charge of the Investigative Services Bureau, overseeing all of the city's detectives as well as all cases. As Chief of Investigations to Chief Lanier, Newsham "was instrumental in helping Lanier reduce homicides". This oversight included a 2008 case where an 11-year-old girl reported being raped twice, but was then charged by the investigating officers with filing a false report after she confused which men raped her; Newsham inherited oversight of the case with his 2009 promotion, and his handling of the case was later criticized in the mid 2010s. In 2013, Newsham commanded the response to the Washington Navy Yard shooting. In 2016, Newsham oversaw the investigation of the murder of Seth Rich, noting that there was no information to support internet rumors that the death was connected to WikiLeaks involvement in the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak. Over the course of his career, Newsham was also the commanding officer supervising four presidential inaugurations and papal visits to the District by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008 and Pope Francis in 2015.