Teresa Chambers is the Chief of the United States Park Police and a career law enforcement officer. [1] Park took office as Park Police Chief on January 31, 2011, but previously served as Park Police Chief from February 2002 until December 2003, when she was dismissed from the position.
Chambers was fired after speaking with a Washington Post reporter in detail about her concerns that new requirements instituted by the United States Congress to double the number of stationary guards at Washington DC monuments, together with budget shortfalls in the Park Police budget were increasing risk.
The Park Police administration and the force's union have said they fear that the stationary posts on the Mall have hurt anti-terrorism efforts, because fewer officers are able to patrol in the area. Chambers said that she does not disagree with having four officers outside the monuments but that she would also want to have officers in plainclothes or able to patrol rather than simply standing guard in uniform. "My greatest fear is that harm or death will come to a visitor or employee at one of our parks, or that we're going to miss a key thing at one of our icons," Chambers said.[2]
The story has been discussed in a larger context as an example of how whistleblowers in US federal agencies are silenced. As Tom Shoop wrote in Govexec.com, a business news site for US Federal managers and executives,
...a shoot-the-messenger attitude is beginning to prevail when it comes to [career federal service employees] challenging the conventional wisdom.[3]
During the time in which Chambers awaited her federal employee appeal, she worked as the police chief of Riverdale Park, Maryland. On 1/11/2011 the Merit Systems Protection Board ordered the Park Police Tuesday to reinstate Chambers within 20 days. The Department of Interior, the agency for the US Park Service, was also ordered to pay her retroactively dating back to July 2004.[4] She was granted reimbursement for legal fees. On January 21, 2011, Chambers resumed her position as Chief of the US Park Police after the incumbent chief agreed to step aside.