Parents in Northwest D.C. are upset that several police cars drove through a park — where their children were playing — to catch a suspect, instead of sticking to the roads that surround Kalorama Park.
“They narrowly missed running over my little kids, who were playing with a ball in that grassy area alongside the playgrounds,” one mother said in an email to Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham and the Adams Morgan community.
According to the woman, on March 20 at about 4 p.m., “a swarm of police cars (about six) raced at high-speed through Kalorama Park, through the grass and on the sidewalks, with many cops on bikes too.”
A second resident described the scene to The Washington Examiner, but declined to be named. Police ultimately arrested a man on the basketball courts.
“A police officer was fighting for his life with a violent, dangerous subject who did not want to go to jail,” Capt. Jacob Kishter, of the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3rd District, said in an email. “He was arrested for a large amount of drugs.”
The officer “received numerous lacerations but thankfully he was not seriously injured,” Kishter said. He did not specify if the man had a weapon.
Kalorama Park is a 3-acre, triangular park bordered by Columbia Road, 19th Street and Kalorama Road. The basketball court where the suspect was handcuffed by police is located off 19th Street.
Although Kishter did not dispute residents’ reports, police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump would confirm only that two unmarked police cars were in the park, and said they traveled “on the paved roadway designed for vehicles to travel on.”
Photos provided by a neighbor who wished to remain anonymous show two cars on the park’s concrete and stone sidewalk — which narrows by the basketball court.
“At no point were any children in danger,” Crump said. “The officers used caution, as they drove on the roadway.”
Denis James, president of the Kalorama Citizens Association, said he is trying to find out more information for residents, who have raised safety concerns and have asked why police didn’t use the roads instead.
“If you’re MPD and you know someone’s on the basketball court, you could have a car come on 19th, you could have a car west on Belmont, or a car on Biltmore — you could have it totally boxed,” James said. “You might be able to do it with one cop car. This sounds like overkill.”
