Police activity yesterday

[creadinger]

Wow, so yesterday was busy as far as police activity was concerned. Side question – what does FPS actually do??

As I got to the top of Good Hope Rd in the morning, 4 MPD cars with all their lights on were blocking most of the road. I took to the sidewalk and saw at least one guy in handcuffs. Not sure what was going on, but I do appreciate the visible police presence in that area in the morning. I usually see 2-3 police on that stretch on a normal day.

In the afternoon, a block west of Nats Park along P St. I saw two Federal Protective Service SUVs parked on the sidewalk with their lights on. Nothing much really going on though. A couple of minutes later as I’m going by the National War College, I see 4 more FPS SUVs, and 2 MPD motorcycles, all with their lights and sirens blaring racing down 4th St. and up P st. in the direction of the other two.

Who or what does FPS actually serve and protect? They occasionally cruise around here (SFC), and pull speeders over, but what type of emergency would FPS respond to? Especially if it’s just to a residential street in DC? I would expect to see MPD taking charge in DC.

Topic

[rcannon100]

Yesterday’s evening commute, there was a secret service car wrapped around a tree (literally) on Ohio Drive near the Jefferson / Tidal Basis. Never saw any coverage of it. Looked quite bad.

[skins_brew]

I think FPS is the police that deals with the sheer amount of federal property in the area.

Also, there was an incident at the White House yesterday, so the activity in the afternoon may have been them responding to that. I have noticed that any type of incident that is even remotely above “routine” requires every law enforcement agency in DC to send every single spare unit they have.

[jrenaut]

@skins_brew 84534 wrote:

Also, there was an incident at the White House yesterday, so the activity in the afternoon may have been them responding to that. I have noticed that any type of incident that is even remotely above “routine” requires every law enforcement agency in DC to send every single spare unit they have.

I’m amazed there isn’t more coverage of this. Why do we even have those ridiculous ugly gates if you can just follow the car in front of you in? The Secret Service failed Security 101. There should be heads rolling.

[creadinger]

@jrenaut 84537 wrote:

There should be heads rolling.

*Their

FSP – Federal Spelling Police

[Terpfan]

There was some sort of rally around 6:30pm-ish over by New York Avenue and 14th St. I haven’t come down that way in a while, but I was en route to trivia when they decided to start blocking off streets. Being late and a whole block ahead of their protests, I just went around the MPD who had blocked the road. He didn’t seem to care. Was that what the WH thing was? Or was there some sort of other incident? I’ve never seen FPS ticketing people, but Treasury Police on the other hand do ticket.

[Steve]

@rcannon100 84533 wrote:

Yesterday’s evening commute, there was a secret service car wrapped around a tree (literally) on Ohio Drive near the Jefferson / Tidal Basis. Never saw any coverage of it. Looked quite bad.

I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t anything about this, despite the fact that there were like 10 police cars responding to it. It looked awful, as you said.

[Bilsko]

@rcannon100 84533 wrote:

Yesterday’s evening commute, there was a secret service car wrapped around a tree (literally) on Ohio Drive near the Jefferson / Tidal Basis. Never saw any coverage of it. Looked quite bad.

Must have been after 530/6PM, right? I was on my regular Ohio Dr route at about 530 and didn’t see anything going on.

[Steve]

@Bilsko 84564 wrote:

Must have been after 530/6PM, right? I was on my regular Ohio Dr route at about 530 and didn’t see anything going on.

Actually on the earlier side, like 345 or so when I rolled thru, and it had already happened. It was at the intersection of Ohio and Maine, so you might not have seen it if you were just heading down Ohio along the river. It appeared that the driver was probably heading south on Maine and taking the right bend onto Ohio heading west, and went up into the median on Ohio and smashed directly into a tree.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@Bilsko 84564 wrote:

Must have been after 530/6PM, right? I was on my regular Ohio Dr route at about 530 and didn’t see anything going on.

I passed it right about 4:15pm and there was only one MPD cruiser and and an NPS motorbike there (aside from the cruiser wrapped around the tree). Maybe he thought the tree was a cyclist? (groan…) Imagine explaining that one to your super.

[creadinger]

I had another interesting interaction with police near Nats Park yesterday.

I turned west onto P Street from Nats Park and when I got to the 4-WAY stop at First St., 2 police cars were pulling up from the right. I dutifully stopped, put my foot down and let the first police car take his turn to go. Then I started across the intersection and the second cop started going too. He even honked at me like I was in his way. So I stopped again and put my arms out like “what?”. He then relented and begrudgingly waved me through.

In theory no lights or sirens means police cars follow the rules of the road yes?

[dasgeh]

@creadinger 86079 wrote:

I had another interesting interaction with police near Nats Park yesterday.

I turned west onto P Street from Nats Park and when I got to the 4-WAY stop at First St., 2 police cars were pulling up from the right. I dutifully stopped, put my foot down and let the first police car take his turn to go. Then I started across the intersection and the second cop started going too. He even honked at me like I was in his way. So I stopped again and put my arms out like “what?”. He then relented and begrudgingly waved me through.

In theory no lights or sirens means police cars follow the rules of the road yes?

I’ve had similar interactions by the Capitol, and have talked with Capitol Police about it. The good news is, since one particularly long talk about how, when an unmarked car doesn’t have lights on, there’s no way for a cyclist to know they’re going to blow through a stop sign beside a guardhouse, the guards actually help stop non-lighted cars when cyclists (or at least me) are coming.

[PotomacCyclist]

@skins_brew 84534 wrote:

I think FPS is the police that deals with the sheer amount of federal property in the area.

Also, there was an incident at the White House yesterday, so the activity in the afternoon may have been them responding to that. I have noticed that any type of incident that is even remotely above “routine” requires every law enforcement agency in DC to send every single spare unit they have.

I think there are something like 20 or 22 agencies (federal, state and local) in the immediate D.C./Arlington area where the agents are licensed to carry firearms and charged with some sort of security or protection duties. The W. Post had an article about it a few years ago. I don’t remember all of the agencies, but here are some that I can think of off the top of my head (and some that I just looked up):

Secret Service
Secret Service, Uniformed Division
U.S. Capitol Police
ATF
FBI
U.S. Mint Police
Pentagon Force Protection Agency
U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement & Investigations
U.S. Marshals Service
U.S. Park Police
Metropolitan Police (D.C.)
DEA
Federal Protective Service
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Federal Bureau of Prisons
Dept. of the Army Civilian Police
Arlington County Police

and on and on and on.

[creadinger]

@PotomacCyclist 86167 wrote:

I think there are something like 20 or 22 agencies (federal, state and local) in the immediate D.C./Arlington area where the agents are licensed to carry firearms and charged with some sort of security or protection duties. The W. Post had an article about it a few years ago. I don’t remember all of the agencies, but here are some that I can think of off the top of my head (and some that I just looked up):

Secret Service
Secret Service, Uniformed Division
U.S. Capitol Police
ATF
FBI
U.S. Mint Police
Pentagon Force Protection Agency
U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement & Investigations
U.S. Marshals Service
U.S. Park Police
Metropolitan Police (D.C.)
DEA
Federal Protective Service
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Federal Bureau of Prisons
Dept. of the Army Civilian Police
Arlington County Police

and on and on an4d on.

We have ONI Police over here. Their only job seems to be to secure and patrol the Navy building here in Suitland.

[dbb]

The City Paper published a field guide to the police forces in DC, probably pre 9/11. As I recall, they got upwards of three dozen and it has likely grown. I’ve looked on the web and haven’t been successful at finding the article.

[OneEighth]

@dbb 86214 wrote:

I’ve looked on the web and haven’t been successful at finding the article.

But rest assured that your attempt to do so has been monitored and duly noted.

[Author]

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