Drag-racing Washington DC police officers wrote off two patrol cars after crashing into one another at speeds of up to 60mph in a quiet residential street. Four DC cops were injured in the crash after the on-duty officers from the capital city’s Sixth District challenged each other to a drag race, FOX 5 reported. The Ford cruisers took out a fence before crashing into each other on Anacostia Ave, 9 miles east of the White House, with stunned residents capturing footage of the crash site. Details of last Thursday’s incident were revealed in internal police emails written by the city’s Sixth District Commander Durriyyah Habeebullah and obtained by FOX 5 . ‘Yesterday two 6D scout cars were totaled because officers decided instead of fighting crime, patrolling their beats, or engaging the community – they decided to drag race each other on Anacostia Avenue at 5 pm in the evening,’ Habeebullah fumed in the email. ‘What does this say to all the members of (Metropolitan Police Department) who are passionate about their job and work hard every day to make a difference. This is not fair to any of us,’ Habeebullah said. In a statement issued by the Washington DC police department to FOX 5, police confirmed it appeared the officers had been racing prior to the crash. ‘Preliminarily, it appears the members may have been racing the vehicles, resulting in an accident.’ Police say four officers from the Sixth District were taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. Fox 5 reported that all four officers involved in the crash have been placed on non-contact pending the outcome of an internal investigation. One of the officers was said to be a female officer who had recently joined the Washington DC force. Witness Jaylah Jennings told FOX 5 she saw the two police cars going ‘really really fast’ just before they crashed. She said the officers were ‘stupid’ and ‘irresponsible’. ‘This is our community, people walk over there. It’s a small community,’ said Jennings.
