Metropolitan Police Department
Historical Foundation
The Residence Act of 1790 allowed President George Washington to locate a site for the nation’s capital city. The president chose land straddling the Potomac River in both Maryland and Virginia. The towns of Georgetown on the Maryland side of the river and Alexandria on the Virginia side were already well-established towns. Maryland and Virginia ceded their respective portions of the selected land for the purpose of establishing the Federal City, which was policed by constables appointed by the two states.
The original charter of Washington was approved in 1802. Under the charter, police authority was centralized and power was granted to the city itself to establish patrols, impose fines, and establish inspection and licensing procedures. The city had an auxiliary watch with one captain and 15 policemen until the creation of the Metropolitan Police Department in 1861.
President Abraham Lincoln took personal interest in founding a regular police department for the District of Columbia. This was a time of constant danger in the nation’s Capital. The Civil War had started, an army was billeted in the city, government employees were increased by ten-fold, and hordes of unsavory elements descended upon the District’s few square miles. The president himself personally dispatched an emissary from the newly created Board of Metropolitan Police Commissioners to study New York City’s police system, which itself was based on the world-acclaimed Metropolitan Police Department in London.
The ideas and knowledge gained from this study led to the creation of the Metropolitan Police Department on August 6, 1861. Attorney William B. Webb was appointed the first Superintendent of the Police in September with an authorized force of 10 sergeants
and a number of patrolmen as needed but not to exceed 150. Up to 10 precincts were authorized. The Superintendent of Police was paid $1,500 annually, with sergeants earning $600 and patrolmen $480.The sergeants and most of the personnel for two precincts were sworn in that September. Officers had to be U.S. citizens, able to read and write the English language, have been D.C. residents for two years, never convicted of a crime, between 25 and 45 years of age, and at least 5 feet, six inches tall. The men went to work right away in 12-hour shifts, seven days a week with no days off and no vacations. They were issued neither equipment nor badges, and they had to obtain their own handguns. The first arrest made by a Metropolitan Police officer was on a charge of intoxication.
In 1881, the first women were appointed to serve as matrons, and in 1918, three policewomen were recruited to form the nucleus of the Women’s Bureau. The Women’s Bureau handled all matters pertaining to female adults and all juveniles coming into official contact with the police. Policewomen investigated causes of delinquency and recommended solutions using either legal action or social treatment. The Women’s Bureau shut its doors in 1968 after MPD became one of the first police departments in the United States to employ women as fully sworn officers.
In January 1977, without any fanfare, the D.C. Police Department fielded the first all-female scout car team on the streets of Washington and, as far as I’ve ever heard, the first of any city in the country. It was the latest in a series of steps through which the department increasingly blurred the lines between male and female police duties and become a model for other cities where resistance remained strong to the idea of fully sworn uniformed women police officers.
Assigned to Scout Car 101 in 3D, the women spent their on-duty time prowling dark alleys and back streets, confronting suspected thieves, addicts, pimps, hookers, drunk and disorderlies, and other denizens of the midnight hours in Washington’s high-crime 14th Street NW corridor.The patrol area for Scout 101 took it between this bleak area and the stylish hotels and shops of Connecticut Avenue a few blocks to the west, with numerous side trips dictated by commands that came in short bursts from the radio.
“Just two police officers,” the senior of the two officers nonchalantly described their assignment togther. With almost seven years on the job, she had been shot at once and was on scene in three other incidents where gunfire was exchanged. She had driven in high-speed pursuits, and once broke her right hand trying to collar a suspected auto thief.
Like their male counterparts, they spent their shifts checking clanging burglar alarms, warning a few potential prostitute robbery victims, approaching autos in which they spotted familiar faces to run name checks and auto tag numbers for possible warrants, and providing back-up to other scout cars doing the same thing, just as others provided back-up to them.
And just like their male counterparts, it was inevitable that a woman police officer would be killed in the line of duty.
Click on the torch for a memorial
Officer Gail Cobb
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