South Capitol Street was closed both ways at the Frederick Douglass Bridge in Washington on Friday afternoon after a person scaled one of the bridge’s arches and forced police to treat the scene as a barricade situation. D.C. police said the person was reportedly walking on top of the bridge, and fire officials said a high-angle technical rescue team was working with officers on the scene.
Authorities urged people to stay away from the area as the closure took hold during the afternoon rush hour. The timing made the disruption worse, with traffic already heavy and a baseball game underway at nearby Nationals Park.
The person on the bridge was the same individual who climbed the structure four years ago after Roe v. Wade was overturned, police told WTOP. After that 2022 incident, the District Department of Transportation said it planned permanent safety and security measures for the bridge, but a DDOT spokesman said Friday the agency never installed them because it could not find anything safe that would not create problems for the bridge.
That leaves the same exposed span facing the same kind of threat that prompted promises of a fix in the first place. Rachel Murray said the closure would “definitely impact foot traffic and customers coming in on a Friday night,” and that was before the evening crowd had even fully arrived.
The immediate question is not whether the scene will clear, but whether officials can keep the Frederick Douglass Bridge from becoming the site of another repeat climb after years of saying they were looking for a lasting solution.
