A few weeks ago, a quartet of Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers in two police cars drag-raced down residential streets, resulting in a confusing-looking crash. D.C. Police have released body cam video that explains how the cars ended up how they did.
On April 22 at about 5:15 p.m., four D.C. Police officers reportedly engaged in a drag race that reached speeds of around 60 mph before one of the cruisers turned into the other, causing a crash with the other cruiser and taking down a fence. The incident occurred on Anacostia Avenue in Ward 7, reports NPR.
Cops tell us normal folks never to street race because it’s illegal and dangerous. So if anyone ought to know better than to race down a 25 mph speed limit street, it’s them. The resulting scene looked baffling and led some readers to believe that maybe the police engaged in a game of Chicken.
One of the officers involved activated their body camera at the time of the crash. The model of camera used records two minutes prior to activation, so it also shows the driving that resulted in the crash. Police have released body cam footage that shows what happened:
The camera sat too low to show the road ahead, but you can get a sense of the speed from how fast the trees were passing by. Right before the crash, the police car on the right comes into frame and appears to turn or lose control. The impact was hard enough to deploy the airbags in the cruiser on the left.
The officer with the filming body cam gets out of the cruiser and catches their breath while the camera shows the two wrecked cars sitting on the corner.
One of the four officers involved was on a probationary status and has been fired following the incident. The other three officers are under investigation by the Office of the Attorney General and then by the D.C. Police internal affairs. The officers could face disciplinary action. As for the other body cams? The other officers didn’t turn theirs on.
Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured from the crash and the only damages were to the cars and the fence. The cars had to be towed off of the scene.