One beautiful thing about Washington, other than the symphony of sirens, helicopters, bus brakes, and drunk college kids shouting, is that you always have a chance to get wrapped up in some day-to-day urban drama. For this author, it happened to be an inmate’s short-lived escape attempt from a Department of Corrections transport. There’s something so “D.C.” about stepping out of your house to see the cops pinning a man to the street; it’s right up there with the half-smoke, cherry blossoms, and tourists standing on the left. By the time the situation was all resolved, seven MPD cars, one Department of Corrections car, a helicopter flyover, and 11 police officers had converged on the street outside my apartment to put on an impromptu street production of The Fugitive.

Yesterday afternoon, after hearing a crash and some yelling out in my street on Capitol Hill, I stepped outside to check it out. Figuring it was neighborhood kids playing ball in the street, I found something much more exciting. Two officers from the Department of Corrections were standing, guns drawn, over a bejumpsuited and beshackled inmate laying face-down in the street, excitedly explaining to him that he was “fucking lucky, motherfucker!” I assume this is because they had opted not to shoot him, though it could have been because he lost only one shoe in his great escape instead of both.

The two officers were joined after a couple minutes by several more police, all of whom kept him on the ground until enough officers arrived to stand him up and carry him to the car. As you expect, all of this commotion brought a crowd. Dozens gathered around the scene to watch it all go down, and the police were generous enough to stretch the scene out for about a half hour so we could meet and mingle. After securing the inmate in his original transport car (and making an obvious effort to click the child lock mechanism), all of the police went on their way.