19th century As the
American Civil War raged on, U.S. president
Abraham Lincoln took a personal interest in the formation of a regular police force for the U.S. capital. Washington had quickly filled with soldiers, government employees, and citizens hoping to cash in on the war. The crowds, crime, and the constant threat of enemy spies, had made the capital into a rowdy city barely under control. After the formation of the Metropolitan Police and its governing Board of Commissioners by
Act of Congress, signed into law by Lincoln on August 6, 1861, Lincoln dispatched a member of the board to study the
New York City Police Department and its structure. The Metropolitan Police replaced previous law enforcement organizations. Before the formation of the district
in 1801, county constables had jurisdiction over the area, along with the comparatively developed police force for the
City of Alexandria. Within the City of Washington, the first police superintendent was named in 1803, and the city divided into four policing wards, each under a constable, in 1804. Yet another force, the 16-member Auxiliary Guard of the City of Washington, was established by Act of Congress in August 1842, purportedly because President
John Tyler had been
burned in effigy, and had rocks thrown at him on the White House grounds. The formation of the Metropolitan Police dissolved all these previous authorities. (The
Militia of the District of Columbia was created in the Assumption Act of May 3, 1802, active as peacekeepers within the district but tasked with defending the federal government, and commanded directly by the president as a military force, not law enforcement.) The Metropolitan Police Board unanimously chose one of its members,
William Benning Webb, who was commissioned as a major in the army, to serve as the first chief of police, the formal title being "Major and Superintendent". The Police Board initially divided the district into 10 precincts. The First Precinct constituted the portion of Washington County east of the
Anacostia River, while the Second Precinct included the county territory north of Washington City and between the Anacostia and
Rock Creek. The Third Precinct comprised the remainder of Washington County west of Rock Creek, including Georgetown and the island of Analostan in the
Potomac River. The Fourth through Tenth precincts corresponded respectively with the First through Seventh wards of Washington City. Beginning immediately, Superintendent Webb worked to organize the department which had an authorized strength of ten sergeants and as many patrolmen as needed, though not to exceed 150. The majority of the new department was hired by September, with the superintendent of police salaried annually at $1,500, sergeants received $600, and patrolmen were paid $480. The officers worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week with no holidays or vacation time. At first officers were issued no uniform or badges and had to purchase their own firearms. The
U.S. Capitol building was chosen as the back drop of the MPD badge a month later and today's badge has changed little from the original. The first arrest by an MPD officer was for public intoxication. In December 1864, A. C. Richards became Major and Superintendent, a post he would hold through the next 14 years. Richards was present at
Ford's Theater the night the Lincoln was
assassinated by
John Wilkes Booth. In one of the lowest points of the MPD's history, the police officer who was to guard Lincoln that night,
John Frederick Parker, had left his post at the door to Lincoln's box, presumably to get a drink at the bar across the street. Officer Crook, who had been on duty that day and had been relieved by Parker who was several hours late for his shift, would place blame in his book on Parker for Lincoln's death. The MPD is the only police department that has arrested a sitting U.S. president. During his presidency,
Ulysses S. Grant was known to speed in his horse and buggy on Washington's streets. The MPD had issued him three different citations for this offense. On the fourth occasion, Grant was arrested on M Street for racing, and his horse and buggy were confiscated. When brought to the station however, the officers became unsure if a sitting president could be formally charged if he had not been impeached. Grant was allowed to pay a fine but had to walk back to the White House. In 1878, Congress abolished the Metropolitan Police Board, and its duties were taken over by the newly formed DC Board of Commissioners, established by Congress to govern the entire district. That year as well, Thomas P. Morgan was named to replace Richards, who had resigned, as Major and Superintendent. Although a police fund had been established during the MPD's first year to assist those officers injured in the line of duty, Morgan would add to this by establishing a retirement fund for older officers who could no longer perform their duties. Also in 1919, the MPD established a "School of Instruction" on the third floor of the 7th Precinct. This was the early forerunner to the Training Bureau and today's Metropolitan Police Academy. A group of 22 officers took a 30-day course in the fundamental duties of police officers, the law of arrest, and court procedures. By 1930, an official training school was established. The school expanded the original course work to a three-month period, and brought in outside experts from various fields to instruct. During the
Great Depression, over 17,000 veterans of the
First World War marched on Washington to demand payment for their service. Known as the
Bonus Army, they set up camp in a
Hooverville in
Anacostia Park. The marchers remained at their campsite waiting for President
Herbert Hoover to take action after Congress rejected a bill to pay the veterans. On July 28, 1932, Attorney General
William D. Mitchell ordered the Metropolitan Police to remove the Bonus Army veterans from their camp. When the veterans moved back into it, they rushed two officers trapped on the second floor of a structure. The cornered officers drew their revolvers and shot two veterans, William Hushka and Eric Carlson, who died later. In the aftermath of the shooting, President Hoover ordered the military, under General
Douglas MacArthur, to disperse the Bonus Army. Fifty-five veterans were injured and 135 arrested. In December 1951, Robert V. Murray became Major and Superintendent. He took the command of a demoralized department marred by embarrassments, corruption, and waning public support. During his 13 years as chief, Murray would be credited with making the most sweeping, and longest lasting changes in the MPD's history and is seen as bringing the department into the modern era of policing. One of his first acts was that he would make rounds of the various precincts, inspecting them and the officers where he promised his support. He developed a code of ethics for officers and created a new branch to investigate police corruption, named the Internal Investigations Division—this was a precursor to the Internal Affairs Division. Murray also made good on his promise to improve conditions for his department. By 1952 Murray had petitioned Congress to give his officers a ten percent raise, had turned the six-day work week into a five-day work week, and worked to have two officers per patrol car. He went on to improve the MPD's vehicle fleet, initiated the use of canines, radar, helicopters and experimented with hand held radios. In 1953 Congress passed the District Government Reorganization Act. It formally abolished the rank and title of Major and Superintendent and replaced it with the position of Chief of Police. Murray would be the last Major and Superintendent and the first Chief of Police of the MPD. Murray's reforms and efforts improved the image of the department which expanded to 3,000 officers. He and the MPD earned public accolades for their handling of the
Transit strikes in the hot summers of 1955 and 1956, the
March on Washington, and the
funeral of JFK. One of his final major acts would be to fully integrate assignments. Specific assignments and beats would no longer be given by only white officers or only black officers. Although it did not eliminate racist tensions and discrimination, it moved the department forward towards racial equality. On September 20, 1974, Officer
Gail A. Cobb was shot and killed, becoming the first female U.S. police officer to be shot and killed while patrolling in the line of duty. While on foot patrol, Cobb was tipped off that a suspected bank robber had just fled into a nearby garage. She located the man and instructed him to place his hands on the wall. As she radioed for assistance, the suspect spun around and fired a single shot at point-blank range. The bullet went through her wrist and her police radio and then struck in the chest, killing her. Officers of the MPD were also present at the
assassination attempt of President
Ronald Reagan during which one officer,
Thomas Delahanty, was shot. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Washington was hit by the
crack epidemic and the homicide rates soared. The district soon became known as the "murder capital" of the nation. During the
1991 Washington, D.C. riot, the MPD contended with three days of violence by rioters, mostly in the
Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, who were upset in the aftermath of a controversial police shooting which exacerbated strained relationships between the city's Hispanic population and the MPD. The riot was dispersed after a curfew was initiated and over 1,000 riot police descended on the area to enforce the peace. In 1999, recently appointed Chief of Police
Charles H. Ramsey partnered with the Washington DC Regional Office of the
Anti-Defamation League and the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to create a new training program that used the lessons of the
Holocaust to help officers better understand their roles in upholding the Constitution and protecting individual rights. Since then, more than 140,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers have gone through the "Law Enforcement and Society" training. In 2000, MPD detective
Johnny St. Valentine Brown, assigned to the narcotics division, was convicted of perjury after lying about having a degree from
Howard University's School of Pharmacy. In the wake of his conviction, many drug offenders with cases involving Brown were retried. In 2001, Brown was charged with contempt after sending the sentencing judge forged letters of support in a bid to gain leniency in his sentencing.
21st century The MPD was the lead investigative agency in the May 2001 disappearance of
Chandra Levy, a 24-year-old woman from
Modesto, California, who was interning at the
Federal Bureau of Prisons. The department was criticized for various missteps in the investigation. Levy's remains were discovered more than a year later, on May 22, 2002, in a wooded area of
Rock Creek Park. The MPD also responded to the
September 11 attacks of 2001.
Charles H. Ramsey, who was the Chief of Police at the time, later stated in an interview: We had just finished up a meeting when my chief of staff came in and told me I needed to go into his office and take a look at what was going on in New York. He had the
Today Show on and he was looking at images of the first tower burning, the second tower had not yet been hit. I asked what happened and he said nobody seems to know. A small plane based on the way it was described must have flown into the building. Everybody was still kind of not sure if it was an accident, on purpose or whatever and as we were standing there looking we actually saw the second plane strike the second tower. Once the second plane struck they realize that it was an coordinated attack. The MPD activated its newly built Joint Operations Command Center (JOCC). Although it had not officially opened yet, September 11, 2001, became its first day of operations. While some equipment had been installed, other devices, such as phones, had not and had to be installed on the fly as emergency personnel arrived to respond. Officials from various agencies and departments including the
United States Park Police, United States Capitol Police, the FBI, Secret Service, and the FAA's military district arrived to respond. Around that time, they were notified that
the Pentagon had been hit as well. Though the Pentagon was located across the river in
Arlington County, Virginia, MPD officers still responded to assist with the emergency response. Additionally, MPD officers working in conjunction with U.S. Park Police officers locked down all federal buildings along the
National Mall, including establishing a perimeter around the White House. That evening, after the majority of the population had returned home and Washington's streets lay empty, Chief Ramsey, his Executive Assistant Chief Terry Gainer, FBI director
Robert Mueller, and Secret Service director
Brian L. Stafford drove around D.C. to check security measures of the locked-down city. While several officers also wanted to assist with efforts in New York, many had to remain in D.C. and the majority of the department worked 12-hour shifts several weeks after the attacks. Ramsey noted that at the time many, himself included, thought that there were more attacks to come. Lanier departed in 2016 to lead security for the
National Football League and was succeeded by
Peter Newsham, the chief from 2017 to 2021. On September 16, 2013, MPD officers responded to the
Washington Navy Yard for an
active shooter in Building 197. Two officers were shot during the over-hour-long search and gunfight. The first, Officer Scott Williams, was hit in both legs during an exchange of gunfire with the shooter, Aaron Alexis. The second, Officer Dorian DeSantis, was a member of MPD's Emergency Response Team. Officer DeSantis was with U.S. Park Police officers Andrew Wong and Carl Hiott and had entered an area of cubicles when Alexis engaged them, striking DeSantis in his tactical vest. Uninjured by the gunshot, DeSantis immediately returned fire and killed Alexis. In all, thirteen people were killed and eight others were injured, three from gunfire. Williams and DeSantis were given the Medal of Valor, Medal of Honor and the Blue Badge Medal on February 20, 2014, during a ceremony to honor them and the 170 law enforcement officers, including 57 MPD officers, who responded and entered the building to search for Alexis. During the
2021 storming of the United States Capitol, the Metropolitan police were among the agencies called to restore order. The department reported that 58 officers were injured during the assault, and that several were hospitalized. In May 2021,
Distributed Denial of Secrets republished the leak of Washington D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department, including over 90,000 emails. Among other things, the files revealed details of surveillance of right-wing extremists and the response to the 2021 United States Capitol attack. On August 11, 2025, President
Donald Trump announced his intention to invoke section 740 of the
District of Columbia Home Rule Act, enabling the president to assume control over D.C.'s police during times of emergency, for up to 30 days. == Notable responses ==