Don’t leave your gun in the department store changing room.

The Metropolitan Police Department will be able to hire up to five new officers with a federal grant announced today by the Justice Department.

For 20 minutes this afternoon, the District’s 911 phone and dispatch system went down. How come? Police officials blame Pepco.

No, cops in Columbia Heights are not stopping people on bikes, asking to see proof of ownership and confiscating the bikes if none could be provided.

Probably no single profession has been more analyzed, mythologized, deconstructed, vilified, or venerated by TV and the movies than that of the Big City Cop. In the late 60s and 70s, with Vietnam and civil rights and Watergate causing Americans to look at virtually every aspect of government with growing skepticism, fictitious portrayals of lawmen darkened to suit the times. The best modern dramatizations of police work focus on its endless potential to corrupt those…