A U.S. Park Police officer wore a shirt into D.C. Superior Court showing two skeletons dressed as officers standing over a handcuffed skeleton next to a wrecked, overturned car — an image the agency has confirmed is authentic. The graphic is now drawing outrage from a lawyer representing the family of Nolberto Meza, a Hyattsville food delivery driver killed when a car fleeing Park Police slammed into his moped on the Taft Bridge.
According to NBC4 Washington, an anonymous source sent the station the image and said it was taken Friday inside the courthouse, and the same source later emailed the photo to attorney Elizabeth White. Park Police confirmed the image was authentic and that it had been worn by one of its own officers, though command staff reportedly only learned about it after NBC4 brought it to their attention.
Elizabeth White, who represents Meza's family, said she was disgusted by what she saw. She told the station that officers appeared to view the matter as not dangerous at all, treating it instead as something closer to a badge of honor. White said wearing the shirt and bragging about the behavior it depicts was insulting, and that the image represented exactly what she works against and what the community no longer wants to see.
A Family Still Grieving a Taft Bridge Crash
Nolberto Meza, 46, was killed when a car being pursued by Park Police crossed the line on the Taft Bridge and struck his moped, according to the station's earlier reporting. He worked as a food delivery driver. Prosecutors later dropped charges against two men who had been riding in the vehicle at the time of the crash, the outlet reported.
Park Police did not dispute that the officer wore the shirt in Superior Court, and the agency said it understands how the image may be perceived by the public, per a spokesperson statement relayed to NBC4. The department also said the shirt had been made for personal use from a photo taken the previous summer, and that the issue was immediately addressed and reinforced throughout the agency once it came to light. The agency would not say what exactly it communicated to officers about the shirt, nor would it provide further detail about any personnel matter. NBC4 reported it has been unable to identify the officer who wore it, and neither the Park Police union nor the anonymous source who supplied the image responded to requests for comment.
A Policy Shift Behind a Surge in Chases
The controversy lands amid growing scrutiny of a Park Police pursuit policy adopted in August 2025 that lowered the threshold for officers to initiate high-speed chases. Under the current rules, officers may pursue a suspect wanted for a felony or when they broadly perceive a threat to the public, according to CNN. Before that change, NBC4 has reported, the chase that killed Meza would have violated the agency's own general orders.
The numbers since the policy shift are stark. CNN reported that Park Police initiated more than 400 chases in the past year, an eightfold jump from the 49 chases recorded the year before the policy changed. At least seven of those pursuits have ended in crashes since January, two of them fatal, per the same report.
Meza's death was one of two fatal Park Police chases that followed the policy change. The other killed 18-year-old Josue Chavez, who died after fleeing a traffic stop on Hains Point and crashing into a tree, Park Police said, according to NBC4's reporting.
Experts Call for a Second Look at Pursuit Rules
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told NBC4 that pursuits and crashes both climbed sharply once the policy changed, and he has called for a review of training and pursuit restrictions. His organization's own research, cited by CNN, found that crashes occurred in at least 30 percent of vehicle pursuits nationally between 2015 and 2020, with injuries or fatalities in up to 17 percent of those cases.
This is not the first time a controversial shirt has entangled D.C. police in questions about officer conduct. In 2017, a D.C. judge dismissed a gun-possession case amid questions over whether the arresting officers wore or helped create a T-shirt bearing their unit's name, an image of the Grim Reaper, and a symbol an advocacy group described as racist, according to The Washington Post. Whether this latest shirt carries any similar legal consequence remains to be seen.
