Black History Hero: A Black civil war veteran, who later became a police officer, arrested President Ulysses S. Grant for speeding
While the nation and much of the world wait to see if former President Donald Trump is indicted, he won’t be the first President arrested and charged with a crime while still in office.
That dubious honor belongs to Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, who served from 1869 to 1877. He was also the Commanding General of the Union Army that defeated the Confederacy.
William Henry West was a former slave, a veteran of the American Civil War, and the first of two Black police officers hired by the Washington, D. C., police department during Reconstruction. West joined the department in August 1871.
In 1872, West was on duty when he stopped a speeding carriage because there had been a number of accidents involving racing carriages and pedestrians. When West looked inside the carriage, he recognized President Grant.
West stopped President Grant while patrolling near 13th and M Streets in NW in Washington, D.C. and gave him a warning for driving his horse-drawn carriage at excessive speed.
The next day, West saw President Grant speeding again along 13th and M Streets, but this time West arrested him, explaining that he had a job to do.
“I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is a duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest,” West said.
President Grant was taken to the police station where paid a $20 fine and was released. In all, President Grant received three citations for speeding in a horse-drawn carriage during his tenure as president.
West’s arrest of Grant was not controversial. The president admitted that he knew he was speeding and deserved to be arrested for what he had done. This is the first known arrest of a sitting president.
West was born in September 1842 to enslaved unnamed parents in Prince George’s Country, Virginia.
In 1863, he joined the Union Army and fought in the Civil War. He was a soldier in Company K, 30th United States Colored Infantry, an all-Black unit created by the United States War Department. The Infantry was composed of Black troops led by White officers.
He married Kathrine “Kate†Bowie on June 11, 1867, in Washington D.C. The couple raised six children.
West retired from the police department in September 1901. He died on September 15, 1915, in Washington, D.C., at 73.