It's Only a Movie, D.C. Residents Are Told After Witnessing Staged Police Raid

By Dan Morse, Washington Post
Jul. 10, 2009

Kelly Craven was reading a children's book to three toddlers in the basement of her Northwest Washington home when a frantic call arrived from a neighbor.

"What's going on outside your house?" the neighbor asked. "There are police running around with guns."

When Craven and her Takoma neighbors learned that a crew was filming a staged police raid, they were not amused. They also have a piece of advice for filmmakers and off-duty police officers: If you're going to act out such a dramatic scene in a residential neighborhood, let people know beforehand.

"I was terrified," Craven, who babysits for children in the neighborhood, said yesterday.

The production crew from Silver Spring-based Sirens Media had hired off-duty Montgomery County officers last week to film a "dramatic reenactment" for a documentary called "Prison Wives." Officials with the company acknowledged yesterday that residents were not properly given a heads-up. News of the reenacted raid was previously reported by WJLA-TV (Channel 7) and the Washington Examiner.

Sirens Media said yesterday that its film crew initially did not know it was in the District instead of Montgomery County. The error of less than a quarter-mile had Sirens apologizing for not obtaining the right permits and Montgomery County police examining whether its officers followed proper procedures for off-duty work.

"We understand the concerns of residents on that street. That's why we're taking this seriously," said Lt. Paul Starks, a Montgomery County police spokesman. Still, he said, the onus of warning the neighbors should have fallen to the production company, which set up the operation.

Lesly Baesens, who lives next door to the scene of the fake raid, had just stepped out of the shower last Wednesday when she heard noises and peered out a window. She saw officers in black SWAT-type gear, some of them yelling.

"I freaked out. I called Julie," Baesens said.

Julie Schor had had her own scare earlier.

She was working in her home office when she heard yelling, looked outside and saw officers with guns. A flier about the reenactment would have been nice, Schor said.

On the set were four off-duty Montgomery officers, four squad cars, one actor, four crew members and one camera, according to Sirens Media and residents. The crew repeatedly filmed the officers and the actor entering a home. Residents said they heard the officers yelling, "Police! Search warrant! Open up!"

Not every resident was taken by surprise.

Wanda Hall, a self-described early riser, was reading the paper when she saw strangers milling about a driveway she shares with her neighbor. She went out and talked to them and learned they would be filming. Montgomery police cars showed up before the production began. Hall said she saw at least one officer take bullets out of his gun.

James Hall, her husband, said he watched the repeated takes from his front yard. "It was just interesting. I had never seen a movie being made," he said.

Craven, whose story hour was interrupted by the fake raid, was still talking about the episode yesterday from her porch.

"They picked the wrong neighborhood to mess with," she said, detailing how her street's reaction to the filming erupted on their neighborhood e-mail list.

"People are already on edge with the Metro accident and the shooting at the Holocaust Museum, and this was, in my opinion, totally not appropriate," Craven wrote the night after the filming.

D.C. Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) saw the posting and weighed in. Bowser eventually sent a letter to Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger expressing her outrage. Manger tried to contact her yesterday, a spokesman said.

Montgomery police officials will also look into whether it was appropriate for the four officers who took part in the filming to take their marked cars into the District. Although off-duty officers are allowed to use their cars, they generally are supposed to keep the cars in the county. Starks, the county police spokesman, said the department is at the beginning stages of its inquiry.

Sirens Media said it had every intention of staying in Maryland and said crew members originally thought they were in Takoma Park in Maryland.