The time I pissed off an entire police department

Towards the end of 2001, I was assigned to write an article about speeding on post during the morning fitness hours. On most Army posts, designated areas are blocked off each morning to allow the troops a place to run without the danger of vehicular traffic. Fort Myer however was too small to allow traffic to be blocked. The speed limit was lowered during the morning run hours, but some people still ignored it. We ran our formations with everyone wearing a reflective belt, and road guards front and back carrying flashlight wands like the police used to direct traffic. They would go ahead at intersections and block traffic until the formation had passed.

I figured this would be a public awareness kind of thing. Some people would express their concerns and the Military Police would reinforce that people needed to slow down. I called every company level training sergeant on post and told them what I was writing and asked if any wanted to comment. Nearly all declined. The few that spoke to me all had the same message, we’re concerned that eventually one of our soldiers is going to be struck by a speeding car. Strangely, all the sergeants that spoke to me were also in my battalion. I also spoke to a few individual soldiers who also expressed the same concern.

I then called the Provost Marshal office and explained what I was writing. I interviewed a staff sergeant who surprised me. I expected to hear things like: speeding is bad, here’s what were doing to combat the problem. I already knew that the MPs had increased patrols during that time as well as frequently having a police car along the running route checking speed with the radar gun.

Instead, what he said was, most of the formations aren’t being run according to post regulations, so were going to start issuing citations to whoever is in charge of the formation. Knowing that was a dumb answer, I asked him if he was sure that’s what he wanted me to write. He assured me it was, and I wrote the article, which ran on Friday.

Coincidentally, Friday was the welcome breakfast for our new battalion commander. The MP company was also in my battalion. On the way there I ran into a guy from my battalion’s admin shop. He informed me that the new CO had reamed the training sergeants I’d spoken to for speaking out against elements within the command. He then reamed the MPs for not doing their job. Now I’m worried about my fate. There is no such thing as freedom of the press for military journalists. I get to the breakfast and I’m not immediately getting yelled at, so I figure I might make it through this unscathed.

Co gets up to speak, I’m excited to be here, great things in the future etc, etc. And then he mentions the article. Ad, while addressing the MPs, he says, don’t be mad at PFC McPhie, he was only doing his job. And he points. Right. At. Me. One hundred cops turn and stare with murderous dagger eyes. I pretended like I didn’t care.

Soon, I started noticing that I was getting pulled over a lot. They would always wait for their backup car to arrive before approaching, which since the post was only a mile long shouldn’t take long. Somehow it was usually 10-15 minutes. Then an officer would approach and say something like, “I just wanted to let you know that your brake lights are working” or “your registration expires in 11 months, don’t forget to renew it.” I also noticed that I got a “random” vehicle search EVERY time I drove through the gate to come back on post. I finally gave up, parked my car and walked everywhere for the next 6 months. I eventually learned that they had posted my ID photo, vehicle description and plate number on the MP bulletin board. I considered talking to the Provost Marshal, but figured it would only make it worse, so I just let it happen.

Sa few months later we got a new editor at the paper. He had been an Army and Air Force journalist before becoming a government civilian as a journalist and eventually assistant editor at another paper nearby. The first thing he talked to me about was the MP situation. He told me that after I had gotten what was clearly an ill-advised statement from the MP sergeant, I should have called the Provost Marshal and given her an opportunity to walk it back or give me a different statement.

He decided that I needed to mend fences and the best was to do that would be assigning me to cover the public safety beat. He wanted me to write a minimum of one feature story every other week about something to do with the MPs. After about a year, most of the MPs had either cooled down or moved to other duty stations, after the second year I actually had a fairly positive working relationship with the MPs which lead to some pretty cool articles.