Yes, the Library Police are real

James Rummel has a post describing the massive fire department response to a kitchen fire in his neighborhood, over at Hellinahandbasket. I tossed in my story:

I used to live in Washington, DC. There were seven police jurisdictions within a few blocks of the National Mall, which stretches from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. (Park Police on the Mall, Capitol Police in the Capitol, Secret Service in the Treasury Building and the White House, US Marshals in the Supreme Court, Library of Congress Police in the Library of Congress, FBI on any remaining Federal property, and DC Metro on non-Federal property.)

I happened to be walking on the Mall one fine summer day when they were setting up for some foreign head of state to do a photo-op on the Capitol steps. Not the kind of police work that they make TV series about. A Ford van had a fender bender with a Chevy sedan in an intersection next to the Capitoil and at least three contingents of law enforcement converged at the run to claim jurisdiction. Also not likely to be the basis of a new NCIS spinoff, but better.

I left them to it. Jurisdictional disputes are not exactly news in DC.

Protip: avoid even the most minor violations in the presence of bored law enforcement personnel.