In Washington D.C. yesterday a snowball fight was organized via Twitter. About two hundred people showed up at 14th. and U Streets and were having a fun time. Some cars got caught in the crossfire. The driver of a Hummer was not pleased. He got out of his car and brandished a gun. A 9-1-1 call was made. Police responded to reports of a man with a gun. It turns out that the Hummer driver is a plain-clothes D.C. detective. Detective Baylor admitted to pulling out his gun. [more inside]
posted by ericb on Dec 20, 2009 - 268 comments

TRAPPED, CUFFED & BUSSED Two Diamondback (Univ. of Maryland student newspaper)reporters covering the IMF-World Bank protests were arrested Friday morning and manacled for 23 hours. Surrounded by hundreds of protesters in Pershing Park, Washington Metropolitan Police circled and arrested the entire group. Jason Flanagan and Debra Kahn were there as impartial observers, and despite the newspaper's efforts to release them, they were stripped of all their possessions - even their shoelaces. What follows is a first-person account of their arrest and detention.
posted by Ty Webb on Oct 2, 2002 - 71 comments

DC Police email scandal. The District of Columbia put computers in patrol cars and encouraged email use to help keep lengthy communication off the radio waves. Instead, a recent audit of department emails showed that many officers used it to send "racist, vulgar and homophobic messages" to each other. Further complicating matters, it appears this might create legal problems for the police -- defense lawyers can undermine officer credibility, convictions may be reviewed for civil rights violations, and the department may be subject to "hostile work environment" lawsuits. Is this a privacy violation, or just another case of employees being too dense to realize that email sent on their employer's system should never be considered private?
posted by monkey-mind on Mar 29, 2001 - 15 comments

Frygate! - Who needs Craig T. Nelson to impose order in The District? DC Metrocops seem to have it all in hand. They sure taught this 12-year old girl a thing or two...
posted by kevincmurphy on Nov 18, 2000 - 8 comments