Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty recently announced his pick of D.C. police department vet Cathy L. Lanier to replace Chief Charles H. Ramsey. Loose Lips today breaks news on that front, reporting on Lanier’s extensive paper trial.

In her 16-year career, Lanier has kicked up several lawsuits including her own sexual-harassment case against the depatment adjudicated in the mid-’90s and a pending 2006 case in which subordinates charge her with violating the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act.

Lanier has also been caught up in the lawsuits surrounding the mass arrests of demonstrators in 2000, the infamous Pershing Park incident in 2002, and the arrests of marchers during President George W. Bush’s second inaugural. She had a hand, it turns out, in developing the controversial policy of “hogtying” mass arrestees.