DC (Dysfunctional Celebration) versus NYC (New Year Celebration!)

Of course, those acronyms are also my home base and New York City. I will tell a tale of two cities’ handling of the recent highly anticipatory parties to mark the coming millennium (in 2001, of course, like that non-DC movie had it). Granted that I was only in one city, but I have now seen the instant replays of hours of coverage of NYC’s event and read more about each locale. My conclusion is that NYC deserved its good result due to diligence, duty, and direction; DC got by with luck despite poor planning, poor performance, and plenty of posturing. But what else is new?

On the night in question, my wife and I arrived at the Mall at about 9:15 PM and passed by the lines at three of the four gates leading to the "secure area" as shown on those wonderful little maps from the Washington Post. We saw a few police working the gates plus a few gathered off to the side of 17^th Street and some on the other side of the snow fences by the Washington Monument. We joined one of these lines at about 9:25 PM. For the next forty minutes we did not see any police patrolling the area along Independence Avenue where we were. In particular, there were no police on the other side of the insubstantial snow fencing that separated us unscreened hoi polloi from the "secure area." Apparently, we were not the only ones who noticed this fact, as just after 10 PM, about a hundred yards west on Independence Avenue, we saw thousands of people streaming through a part of the snow fence that had been squished down by the crowd. Within five minutes of seeing this, the folks right ahead of us in our line decided that the evidence was in concerning DC’s "secure area" and they proceeded to easily squish down the fence right there and went on in. Ten minutes after that, the cavalry arrived (mounted US Park Police). This is known in the trade as "locking the barn door after, etc." I wanted to tell them, "Hey, you guys should’ve been here fifteen minutes ago," but fortunately my wife counseled me to shut up.

Well, after we entered the "secure area" (now you see why I have put it in quotes) we found that the general public really couldn’t see any of the show except on a big screen TV with bad sound and we were taping it anyway, so we wandered around, observed the scene, went all the way up to the edge of the truly secure area by the Lincoln Memorial, visited the warming tent and the rest rooms, and walked some more to keep warm. In all these travels in the "secure area" we did not see even one police officer. In two minutes on the midway at the Montgomery County Fair in August, I promise you will see more uniformed police officers than we did in two hours in this "secure area."

At about 11:30 PM, we got to our preferred spot near the fifty-foot high number sign (1999, then 2000 in lights) with a good view of the Washington Monument. Things were going basically all right until about 11:40 PM when from behind us a man crashed through the standing crowd, stomped on two kids who were sleeping on blankets behind me, smashed down the snow fence at the edge of the Reflecting Pool and proceeded along the edge of the Pool. He was wearing a jersey that said "Hooligan" which was truth in labeling, though it might have added "drunk." Just luckily for all of us and for the big fireworks show, he was not an (unlabeled) terrorist or even someone intent on doing harm. (Although he did slightly bloody my leg, and he did bruise and muddy the children he stomped while crashing the fence.) When he got to the edge of the Pool, he took off all (yes, all) of his clothes and proceeded to swim and stumble his way across the Pool. After a couple of minutes of posturing on the north side, he made the return journey. During this non-Olympic event, about twenty fireworks or show technicians gathered to watch, clearly concerned that Master Hooligan would mess up the wiring and controls for the electronically triggered fireworks placed down the middle of the Pool, which he crossed twice. Still, in the ten minutes that this took, no one intervened and zero police were observed anywhere in sight. Nature boy dressed, climbed over the fence again, and that was that.

Presumably the police protection for this "secure area" was primarily the responsibility of the US Park Police, with an assist from the Secret Service. But the Metropolitan Police were little in evidence on their own turf after midnight. As my wife and I made our way down Independence Avenue, then across the Mall and through downtown DC toward the Metro Gallery Place station, we saw several instances where there were many cars on "closed streets" (there are those quotes again). Although we did see a total of ten or fifteen MPD officers in a half dozen spots, they were all up on the sidewalks near buildings or inside patrol cars. Many were having a warming drink, presumably coffee or hot chocolate (I will admit I saw no doughnuts). None were active, doing either control of the cars or assistance to the crowds of pedestrians, just waiting for their shift to end. Local TV images of the DC Police Command Center showed a very crowded (and very secure) place. Unfortunately, it was way far from the action. This is a continuing pattern with the DC police — many officers, many on duty, not many working the streets. DC’s philosophy seems to be to spend a lot to have a force ready to react after something happens.

To this sad tale, contrast what we saw on the TV coverage of Times Square. NYC spends a lot to have their force out working the streets to ensure that nothing does happen. The additional benefit of this approach is that the citizenry sees the police actually working (and it is hard work, when done right), and the people not only are more secure, they also feel more secure. We saw thousands of uniformed officers, some in protective gear, on the streets actually working. They were patrolling the sturdy metal crowd control fences, they were on the main streets, they were on the side streets, they were everywhere that people were. They were there to protect the people who came out to party, yes, even to protect them from themselves. They helped those who imbibed too much, they helped those who needed other help. They noticed a man with handcuffs hanging from his belt and followed him as he went to a car that held a loaded rifle. They arrested him. In other words, they worked hard and did their job and they deserve much praise and thanks for that. But it also comes from the top: Mayor Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir deserve credit too for leadership in the effort of planning and producing the actual protection that was provided to the people in Manhattan that night. From my own observations of the scene in DC that night, I cannot say anything nice about our officials, so I’ll leave it at that.