This was a new one. Both my wife and I received separate phone calls around the same time from a man claiming to be a “Washington DC police officer” and telling us that we have a warrant for our arrest for a missed court date.

If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be a law enforcement officer saying you owe money, missed a court date or jury duty, etc. do not provide any personal information, do not pay for anything over the phone. Your best bet is to hang up, and contact MPD directly.

MPD writes on their website that if residents receive a questionable call:

Don’t give in to pressure to take immediate action.
Don’t engage in any conversation, as scammers may record your response.
Don’t provide your credit card number, bank account information, social security number, or other personal information to a caller.
Don’t send money if a caller tells you to wire money or pay with a prepaid debit card or transfer any funds to a Bitcoin account.
Don’t travel to any location the caller asked you to go to.

Here’s how our calls went down:

I received a scam phone call from a man pretending to be an MPD officer saying I have a warrant for a missed court date. This fellow was not fully aware of how MPD operates or communicates, and since I am very familiar with MPD processes (I was a member of MPD’s Community Engagement Academy), I immediately knew the call was fake. I tried to get as much info from him as I could — I asked for a badge number, MPD District and his supervisor’s name. (FYI, you can look up any MPD officer on their website.)

Here’s what the scammer told me:

Said his name was Sergeant John Terry, Jr.
Called me from 202-945-0706.
Said his Badge Number was “1246C.”
Claimed to be from the Second District.
Said I missed a court date for Feb 5, 2024 and that he was giving me a "courtesy call.”
Claimed the call was being recorded (was obviously a cell phone).
I asked for next steps after being “notified” by him. He got annoyed and said I could speak to his supervisor "Lt Derrick Tar."
He put me on mute, tried to change his voice a bit, and then claimed to be "Lt. Tar.”
Lt Tar said the call was being recorded.
"Lt Derrick Tar” said his Badge Number was “116C.”
Lt Tar said he was from the Sheriff’s office, then corrected himself to say he was MPD.
Then he cursed at me (“Ah, fk this”) and hung up.

He told my wife the following:

Said he was Lieutenant Derrick Tarr, Badge Number 13246. He said he was from "Washington DC Police" and there were two open Federal citations against her for a missed court appearance. He told her if she came into contact with any law enforcement official she would be detained. He said that since she was stating that she was not notified of the court appearance of the subpoena that she needed to go to 300 Indiana Avenue for a “Signature Analysis Exam” to give burden of proof that she was not notified of the subpoena. He told her she had to stay on the phone the entire time as she went to the location.

The scammer also told her that she may not tell anyone about this other than her attorney or law enforcement or she will be arrested.

Please don’t fall for this type of scam. When in doubt, always VERIFY by calling MPD. If the police are really calling you out of the goodness of their heart to tell you that you missed a court date, etc., then they won’t mind that you hang up and call them back directly.

Be safe!