A veteran U.S. Park Police officer who led the department as its chief for 14 months before retiring in April has been hired by D.C. police to oversee a new effort to foster equity and diversity among sworn and civilian members of the force.

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       Pamela A. Smith, who served 24 years with the Park Police, was named chief in February 2021. She announced her retirement last month, giving no public reason for her departure.

       Smith has not publicly addressed her new job in the District and was not made available to comment for this article on Friday. .

       In a statement, Smith described her new role as chief equity officer as “crucial to the success of all members of our department” and efforts to make D.C. police a “model police agency across the world.”

       U.S. Park Police Chief Pamela Smith retires after one year on the job

       D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III promised in February to hire an equity officer while testifying at a Council hearing during which several current and former female members of the department gave tearful accounts of facing discrimination and sexual harassment.

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       Contee told lawmakers then that “those types of behavior are not something I will tolerate.”

       In a statement, Contee said Smith will be responsible for “guiding efforts and creating opportunities to define, assess and promote diversity and inclusion” across the department, which has about 4,000 sworn and civilian members,

       The D.C. police department faces several lawsuits filed by current and former members, alleging discriminatory practices and other alleged abuses, including within divisions that investigate complaints against officers and claims of racial discrimination.

       One of those suits, filed last fall, alleges widespread discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation for speaking out about bias and misconduct over the past two decades. The 10 Black female plaintiffs include former and current officers, among them Assistant Chief Chanel Dickerson, one of the most senior Black members of the force.

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       Donald Melvin Temple, the attorney representing the lawsuit involving Dickerson, which is pending in federal court in the District, said hiring an equity officer “does not resolve the comprehensive problems we identified.”

       Ten current, former Black female D.C. police officers sue the city, claiming discrimination

       Temple said the department needs to overhaul the offices that oversee internal investigations and handle complaints of discrimination, to make inquiries “objective and impartial.” He said an equity officer isn’t needed “to tell you that you have malingering problems … when it comes to protecting these officers’ rights.”

       Smith began her law enforcement career in 1998 serving in field offices with the Park Police in New York, San Francisco and the District. Officers patrol parks and similar federal properties, such as the Statue of Liberty in New York and the National Mall in the District, and are often at the front lines of demonstrations, such as the controversial clearing of mostly peaceful protesters outside Lafayette Square in the summer of 2020.

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       In February, Smith became the first Black female Park Police chief in the department’s 231-year history. She took the helm of a troubled force struggling with staffing shortages and a deficient dispatch center, both part of a complaint filed by the officer’s union with the inspector general. The union also filed a grievance, saying the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service did not give Smith the tools she needed to fix the problems.

       Tom Jackman contributed to this report.