Montgomery County police officers now have new patches on their ballistic vests to help the public differentiate between their law enforcement agency and others active in the area, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In a social media post on Tuesday, the Montgomery County Department of Police wrote that some patrol officers currently wear outer ballistic vests with a cloth badge on the front and “POLICE” on the back.
Going forward, all vests worn by county patrol officers will have a patch on the back that reads “MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE.”
As of Wednesday, all county police officers had received the new patches, police spokesperson Degan Bartels wrote in an email to Bethesda Today.
In a Wednesday phone interview with Bethesda Today, police spokesperson Shiera Goff said there have been several recent instances during which residents have confused county officers attempting to serve search warrants with ICE officers conducting immigration raids.
Goff said some county officers have been harassed by residents who wrongly assumed they were with the federal immigration agency.