A D.C. Council member participating in a forum on police-community relations suggested that one way to improve interactions would be to strip Metropolitan Police Department officers of their firearms.

“My staff won’t let me tell you that I think we ought to get rid of guns in this city, and that police shouldn’t have guns, so I’m not going to tell you that,” said council member David Grosso, at-large independent, at a Wednesday night council committee hearing. “But I think we have to re-imagine the way that we relate to one another across the board and then change MPD.”

Mr. Grosso made the comments at a hearing meant to elicit testimony from D.C. residents about their daily interactions with police officers. Dozens of residents and activists testified both about personal experiences with MPD officers and made suggestions about how to improve interactions.

The statement drew a sharp rebuke from the D.C. police union chairman, who said Mr. Grosso is “living in a fantasy world.”

“America is a gun-oriented society, so any idea of an unarmed police force is just fantasy. Police would be at a total disadvantage,” said Delroy Burton, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Fraternal Order of Police.

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