Metropolitan Police Department
Washington, D.C.To Protect and Serve in the Nation’s Capital
The DepartmentEach year over 20 million visitors from around the world come to Washington, D.C., to see the capital city of one of the world’s greatest democracies, its museums, historical landmarks, and residential neighborhoods. It is a city rich in history and culture and is the hometown of over 600,000 residents. Its population is larger than those of the states of Vermont, Wyoming, and Alaska. Thousands of employees travel into the city daily from their homes in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs to go to work at government agencies and private offices.
The city’s location was chosen by President George Washington and currently occupies an area of 68 square miles. It is bordered to the north, west, and east by Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties in Maryland. The Potomac River marks the District’s southern boundary. A number of bridges connect the district to the Virginia side of the river where Arlington County, Fairfax County, and the City of Alexandria share the boundary.
To provide law enforcement protection for residents, visitors, and commuters the Metropolitan Police Department, or MPD, had some 3,600 police officers and over 600 civilian employees. The city was divided into 7 police districts, each with its own police station. There were also stations for some specialized units such as the Traffic Division, Youth Division, and Special Operations Division. Specialized investigative units that operated throughout the city were housed at police headquarters. These units included homicide, robbery, fraud, and internal affairs.
CommunicationsAll 9•1•1 calls originating in the District of Columbia were answered in the police communications center located on the sixth floor of the municipal center, which was where police headquarters was located. Medical and fire calls were transferred to the fire department which had its own communications center located near Howard University. The
communications center was secured behind a cipher-locked door. It had a hallway running its length. On the left side of the hallway as you entered the center were the teletype office, the watch commander’s office, and the supervisor’s office. The watch commander was usually a police lieutenant. There would usually be several supervisors on duty at any given time. There were civilian supervisors and uniformed sergeants.
To the right as one walked down the hallway were first the dispatchers in their individual cubicles and then a room where the 9•1•1 operators sat at their consoles. There could be up to 30 9•1•1 operators working at one time. There were 8 and sometimes 9 dispatch positions. Each of the 7 police districts had its own radio channel and hence its own dispatcher. In addition, the specialized units that worked out of police headquarters shared a channel called City Wide One. Special Operations Division had its own channel, called SOD or A-11. It had a dispatcher assigned to it only when SOD had a detail working. Sometimes, if there were not enough dispatchers working a particular shift, City Wide One would be combined with the channel for the First District.
Each of the dispatch channels also had a TAC or talk-around channel. Also, there was a citywide TAC channel that units and dispatchers could use. This channel was on a repeater and so could be used to talk from one part of the city to another. The district TAC channels were not.
Besides the dispatchers working each channel, there was an assist’s position assigned to help two channels a piece. Hence, the dispatcher working the assistant’s position would help two dispatchers with making phone calls, running tags and driver’s licenses, and that sort of thing. Usually, however, we worked it so that our breaks would come during the time we rotated through the assistant’s position. That meant that there often was only the dispatcher with no one to help do the phone and computer work.
Dispatchers started out answering 9•1•1 calls. You could then be trained to work the radio channels. That meant a higher civil service grade and hence more money. It was also more fun. A dispatcher could function as a 9•1•1 operator, but a 9•1•1 operator could not function as a dispatcher. No one was required to train as a dispatcher. If you were content being a 9•1•1 operator, you could do just that.
TrainingThe training I received at MPD was excellent and contrasted dramatically with what I had received in Florida. There my training had consisted of listening in on the switchboard operator for a couple of hours and then reversing the roles while he listened in on my handling the incoming phone calls. The following day I was on my own. My exposure to incoming emergency calls didn’t fare much better: we were short-handed one day and there was an incoming call on one of the emergency lines, and no one was available to pick it up. One of the other diapatchers simply nodded and pointed: I answered and handled my first emergency call with that agency. My training as a radio dispatcher was of similar vein: I watched someone do it for a couple of hours, then I did it. This could be termed the sink or swim method of training.
It was different at MPD. I sat in a classroom with one other trainee for four weeks before I ever got to touch a working console. The classroom instruction consisted of lectures on procedures, laws and ordinances, on the equipment, and also a great deal of practical illustrations and role playing. Once that phase of the training was successfully completed, the other trainee and I remained in our training room but took actual calls, first administrative and then 9•1•1 calls, all under the watchful eyes of our training officer. Then we were transferred to a working shift.
We came on-shift fully trained and ready to handle calls. Later, there was an enhanced training course featuring the more esoteric features of the 9•1•1 telephone system and complaint handling procedures.
There was a formal training program for advancing from 9•1•1 operator to certified dispatcher, but my training officer bypassed that program, electing to use on the job training only. The OJT was supplemented by written materials detailing dispatch procedures for certain contingencies such as vehicular pursuits, barricade situations, officer-involved shootings, and presidential motorcades.
Earning My Wings
We started out at 6D. Although its borders have changed somewhat since then, at the time the Sixth Police District was wedged between the Anacostia River and the Maryland State Line and between Pennsylvania Avenue and the Maryland State Line. It was traversed in one direction by Minnesota Avenue and in the other by East Capitol Street, Benning Road, and Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue. Since it was bisected by East Capitol Street, part of 6D was in Northeast and part of it was in Southeast.
Roy, my training officer, picked 6D because if any of the 7 police districts in D.C. could be said to be the slowest, it would have been 6D. This was a good thing in my mind because my family and I lived in 6D just off Minnesota Avenue and near Ridge Road. This distinction of being the slowest of the districts often times would get lost when it got busy and would soon disappear as all of the districts got busy and stayed busy, but it was a nice beginning.
My first time on the air, Roy and I both plugged into the console. He worked the channel for a while, and then I did. He basically told me what to say, what to do, and helped make sure I didn’t get behind on CAD updates, running tags and permits, and that sort of thing. My first time on the air, however, we got a foot pursuit near the old Senator Theater on Minnesota Avenue near Benning Road. Roy told me to move over, and he took over the channel immediately.
Within a few sessions, Roy stopped plugging into the console with me. He was always hovering about with a portable radio, listening, ready to offer suggestions and directions, but basically letting me do the job. He put me into the rotation, alternating between 6D and 7D. It was on 7D that I won my wings, and Roy decided I was ready to be released from training and to fly solo.
As I recall, it was a typical day shift on 7D: busy but not suffocatingly so. Suddenly, a scout car attempted a traffic stop and the car took off. We had a pursuit going that would eventually go from the 7th District into the 6th District, back into 7D, and then across the state line into Maryland. It would involve three law enforcement agencies: D.C. Police, Prince Georges County Police, and Maryland State Police.
MPD had a very specific and very stringent pursuit policy. The original pursuing police car would be joined by one other car. The original car would be the primary chase car and radio traffic would be assumed by the follow-up car, thus keeping everyone informed of the pursuit’s progress. A sergeant would monitor and move toward the pursuit. All other units in the area would monitor and prepare to come to the assistance of the two pursuit cars as needed. However, no one else would join the pursuit unless directed to do so by communications. The dispatcher working the pursuit would hit a supervisor alert button. The Communications Division Watch Commander was in charge of the pursuit.
Everything went pretty much as dictated by the pursuit policy. I cleared the channel, hit the supervisor alert button, and a second scout car got into position quickly to relay the pursuit’s progress as it made its way from one police district into the adjoining district. A sergeant acknowledged the pursuit and was assigned to monitor. We ran the car’s tag: it was stolen.
At one point, as the pursuit dragged on, involved more and more road miles, and was obviously headed into Maryland, the communications watch commander told me via intercom to instruct all involved units to discontinue the pursuit. He had missed the tag return and was not aware that the car was stolen and hence the units were pursuing fleeing felons. The rules for pursuing into a neighboring state and for when and when not to discontinue a pursuit change when the fleeing driver is wanted for a felony instead of just traffic offenses. Th person in the assistant’s position, who was helping me with telephone notifications and keeping track of the pursuit’s location, told me to ignore the watch commander’s instruction and left to go back to his office to fill him in. The pursuit continued, but that left me alone.
The pursuit continued into Maryland where the driver crashed. All occupants were taken into custody after a short and swiftly concluded foot pursuit.
All the time this is going on, Roy, my training officer, was standing in the 9•1•1 operator’s room listening on his portable. He had started to come up to the console when the chase started but then decided to wait and see how things went. He figured I was doing okay on my own and didn’t return to the console until the pursuit was over and the channel had been cleared for routine traffic. He told me at that point that I no longer needed to be in training and that he would be doing the paperwork to release me.
That was my formal release from dispatcher training. My real-world release came a few days later on a busy Friday night. I was working a 9•1•1 position in the back room and had to go to the supervisor’s office for something. While standing there waiting for the attention of one of the civilian supervisors, I heard her lamenting that one of the dispatchers was going home sick and she needed someone to work the 5D radio position. I politely interjected that I would be happy to take the departing dispatcher’s position at 5D if it would be helpful.
She cut me a look of cautious dismay. Has Roy released you from training? Have you worked 5D? I answered truthfully to both: yes. She was skeptical. You think you can work 5D on a Friday night? Sure, I nodded with what I hoped was a look of humble confidence. The 5th District included the area around DC General Hospital, the H Street corridor in Northeast, and a large chuck of the area around Catholic University. It was a busy district. I understood her concern. After some hesitation and in what was clearly a decision against her better judgement, she just said okay, and away I went to 5D.
I had just earned my wings.
Unique Environment
Because it is the police force for the nation’s capital, MPD has played a unique role in a number of history-making events. In 1865, when President Lincoln was assassinated, MPD assisted the War Department’s intensive investigations to locate the assassin, John Wilkes Booth. In 1881, MPD was again involved in a presidential assassination when President James A. Garfield was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Depot on B Street. An MPD officer seized the assassin before he could escape from the scene.
Attempts on the lives of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Ronald Reagan, and then Council Member (and future mayor) Marion S. Barry Jr., very much involved the department. Tragic events such as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. — as well as happier events such as the many presidential, mayoral and Council inaugurations, and national parades and marches — have made MPD an expert in crowd control.
Aside from its national role, Washington, D.C., is also a modern American city. As a dispatcher, that means it was always busy. When I interviewed for the job, the panel asked about the call volume at my center in Florida. I estimated maybe 200 calls a day on average. They all laughed. The normal call volume in D.C. was 200 calls an hour. That’s 4,800 calls a day or 33,600 calls a week or 1,747,200 calls a year.
There were a lot of traffic complaints, barking dogs, vehicle accidents; but there were a lot of shootings, stabbings, chases, fights, and that sort of thing. As a dispatcher, it wasn’t unusual for me to have a half dozen priority calls flashing on my screen at any given time. That was just the norm.
There were always too many calls and not enough cops. It was also the most fun I’ve ever had as a dispatcher. The call volume and the seriousness of the calls tested your skills and your abilities. When it got busy on the street, the interaction between the dispatcher and the officer took on a kind of rhythm of its own. There was always a certain amount of tension as everyone tried to do their job without stepping on each other’s toes. Also always present and felt by everyone was the knowledge that at any moment all hell could break loose.
It was a big department and any given channel could have a hundred or more units working on it. Still, you got to know voices and to perceive what was real and what wasn’t. One particular night, when communications was short of dispatchers and one dispatcher was handling both the Second (2D) and Third District (3D) channels on one radio channel, 2D officers were chasing an armed perpetrator inside the garage at the Kennedy Center. That pretty much had the air tied up. When an officer in 3D interrupted all that radio traffic, the dispatcher recognized that it must be urgent for her to do so. It was. She had just been involved in a fatal shooting on 16th Street.
There were a lot of officer-involved shootings. I worked 5 myself, 2 where the perp was shot by an officer, 2 where an officer was shot by a perp, and 1 where several officers exchanged gunfire thinking the other officers were the bad guys. One of the officers was shot by another officer.
Special Events and ConsiderationsMother’s Day
The term came to have a whole new meaning. It wasn’t a day that came along once a year and in May. It arrived with the first of each month. I have used a couple of sources to chronicle one typical Mother’s Day in 1987.Roadrunner
I always liked that Saturday morning cartoon show. At MPD, however, the term was used to refer to a presidential motorcade.Tradition
MPD was the oldest department for which I’ve ever worked, whether as a dispatcher or in some other field. Its history stretched back to the American Civil War. It was one of the first police departments to hire women. The first sworn policewoman to be killed in the United States was a D.C. police officer. I include a brief memorial in her memory on this page.Officer Down
Two officers died while I was at MPD. Several others were hurt.
BioPage Welcome
