Montgomery County police said they were trying to help out a local production company when they gave off-duty officers permission to use county equipment for a mock police raid that would be filmed for a TV show.
Police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said the county has given the green light for officers to participate in filming for TV shows before, including “America’s Most Wanted” and a documentary detailing the Beltway Sniper drama of 2002.
“We’ve not had a problem in the past,” Baur said.
But this time they did.
County police officers crossed into the District, in county-owned police cars, to stage a raid in a Northwest. Now residents are upset because they said weren’t told beforehand that the county’s officers would be conducting a police operation on their street and would tie up traffic for half a day.
Baur said the Silver Spring production company mistakenly told the department the filming was going to take place in Montgomery County, and the department wouldn’t have agreed to take part otherwise. She said it was the production company’s responsibility to make sure that the proper officials were notified before filming began.
But upset District residents said the police department should share the blame for not properly vetting the production company and not making sure no corners had been cut.
“I am sure that you have given great consideration to the appropriateness of Montgomery County police resources being used for this purpose,” Ward 4 Councilwoman Muriel Bowser wrote to Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger. “But please assure me that Montgomery County police officers will not participate in nonessential police activity in the District of Columbia without express coordination with the relevant District agencies.”
