Metropolitan Police Department

Where were the police and fire stations located in Washington back in 1880? Check out this great old map. Source: Library of Congress This was done by the same people that did the great 1880 property values map, street sweeping...

Ulysses Grant was arrested for directing by William West, an African-American metropolitan policeman. This is a great historical story.

On the chance that something related to our favorite police officer had been added to the Library of Congress archives, we ran a quick search this weekend, and sure enough … something came up. Below is a photo from an...

Thanks to the tweet below, we came across an amazing photo of Officer Sprinkle and his brother. Dunno if word ever got to @GhostsofDC or @timkrepp – TWO Sprinkle brothers were MPD officers, J.L. and J.F. http://t.co/u2P7nLtrQZ — DaveS (@darsal)...

Here is the obituary for Raymond B. Sprinkle, the son of our favorite policeman, Officer Sprinkle. Thanks to long-time GoDCer John for sending this one in. SPRINKLE–On Monday, January 2, 1933. RAYMOND B., beloved son of Capt. and Mrs. Joshua...

Really? This is a crazy headline from the Washington Post, published on March 1st, 1972. The city was a little rough around the edges then, but a policeman performing a holdup? A metropolitan policeman was arrested last night and charged...

This is a wild story we dug up in the Washington Post. It was published on June 5th, 1938. Private Ernest Cullenber, of Park Police, yesterday made a story-book arrest. Clinging in the running-board of a commandeered automobile, he pursued...

Here is a terrific photograph from the Library of Congress, showing a traffic policeman at 14th and Pennsylvania, making use of a rearview mirror. The photo was taken some time in the 1920s.

You all have been waiting a long, long time for this. So have we. Thanks to one of our GoDC fans, we have in our possession, the biography of Officer Sprinkle from the 1908 Metropolitan Police Department’s official history book....

I can’t find him in this photograph. Can you?

This is an awesome photograph of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department in 1922, on their motorcycles. (I’d hate to be the guy riding in the sidecar.) The photo was taken on April 26th, 1922.

If you lived in D.C. in the 1980s, seeing a police chase screaming down K St., or any other major thoroughfare, was not a rare occurrence. So, out of the thousands of chases mentioned in the newspaper archives, we have...

Our favorite officer and the patron saint of Ghosts of DC, Officer Sprinkle, took a trip up to New York City with a group of 21 contest winners from The Washington Post. Twenty-one winners in the Post’s European tour contest...

Here’s a crazy story for you from the 1940s. This was published in the Washington Post on June 4th, 1949. A young Air Force private was grabbed from a ninth-floor ledge of the Willard Hotel yesterday by three policemen who...

Our neighborhoods don’t have quite the colorful names of yesteryear. Much like Murder Bay, Hell’s Bottom was a seriously dangerous place to live, or even walk through. It was not the beat you wanted as a policeman.

What an awesome headline … we have to share this one with GoDCers. On October 28th, 1957, the Washington Post reported on a bizarre incident, where a man took a streetcar for an illegal joyride on Pennsylvania Ave. You have...

This is the first guest post by GoDCer Tim. Given that we have “ghosts” in our name and with today being Halloween, it’s appropriate to have a post about the paranormal. Also, don’t forget to check out Tim’s recently released...

This is another example of how you don’t want to see your name in the papers. This is an article from the Baltimore Sun, published on Mar 9th, 1934. Washington, March 8 (AP)–Representative Shoemaker (F.-L., Minn.) was arrested tonight on...

A huge gambling bust happened on January 31st, 1925. The location was a crowded restaurant on E St. where people would gather for illegal dice games and gambling. The Washington Post reported on it the following day. A Greek restaurant...

Do you like your beer, wine or liquor? The Sheppard Bone-Dry Act of 1917 would have put a major damper on your libations when it was signed by President Wilson. November 1st, 1917 would be the day all Washingtonians would...

Prohibition was a rowdy time in D.C., much like the rest of the country. The police had to deal with bootleggers constantly in the city. This article from the Washington Times illustrates that in dramatic fashion. The piece was written...

I came across an article in the Washington Times about three giants of the Washington police force … and I mean real “giants,” as in super tall cops. Well, super tall by standards back in 1903, not Gheorghe Muresan. Though...

Here is a terrific old advertisement from 1918, soliciting young men between 22 and 35 to join the Metropolitan Police Department (a limited number of intelligent and educated women will also be considered). Click on the advertisement for some greater...

Yesterday’s post was popular, and thanks to GoDCer Mark’s tweet, I have another oddity to share with you. Below is a scene you’re not likely to see today at 14th and G. This is Julius Daranyi who had arrived in...

To satisfy your hunger for more Officer Sprinkle, I took a look into where he lived in 1900. At the time, he was 34 years old, had been married to his wife Teresa for 10 years and had been working...

Most of you probably walk right by those old police boxes scattered throughout the city. Some of them have been turned into miniature art exhibits — like the ones in Mt. Pleasant. Check out the video above of Sgt. Nicholas...

This is an odd story from the Washington Times. The paper reported on August 11th, 1908 the arrest of a young five-year-old. Yes, a little kid was arrested and it’s a bizarre story. Not only was he taken in by...

Here’s a daily dose of DCPD badass Officer Sprinkle. Do not mess with this guy. He means business. Also, this sounds like a little bit of a salacious love triangle. The following story was published in the Washington Post on...

A brief article tells the tale of the last execution by hanging in the District. Copeland was a cop killer and had murdered three policemen in cold blood in May 1918. He shot and killed Officer Conrad and Deputy Sheriff...

The opium den post of last week was the first foray into old Chinatown research, but I’ve uncovered a gold mine of fascinating local history. You probably were unaware of this, but in the 1920s, there was a brutal criminal...