Paying DC Police to Work the New Baseball Stadium

Photo by Jdland.com


It's all part of the deal with Major league Baseball according to DC Police Officials. They'll assign about 40 officers to a security detail at the New Nationals Ball park beginning Sunday March 30th Opening day.

The officers will already be on duty but won't be coming from neighborhood or street patrols, say officials. They'll be detailed from special operations and administrative assignments in the Districts according to Assistant Chief Patrick Burke.

DC Councilman Phil Mendelson who voted against the bill to provide 600 million dollars in public financing for the stadium project is equally skeptical about the police detail to the stadium because taxpayers and not the Nats owners will again be picking up the tab.

The FOP head Khristopher Baumann goes further and says if the city has 40 officers available for duty they should be assigned to community policing and not be made available on taxpayers dime to the stadium.

Last year MPD provided police officers for security at Nats games at RFK...that was okay with the FOP because the officers were off duty and being paid overtime. The DC Sports and Entertainment Commission should have picked up the overtime tab; but that agency is broke and so the police department had to absorb the nearly two million dollar overtime expense.

I checked with Police about their arrangements with the Verizon center where the Wizards and Capitols play. Turns out there is a much smaller special Police operations detail assigned to the center; but police spokesperson Traci Hughes says the city is reimbursed for their services by Wizards owner Abe Pollin