WATCH: Operation Flagship – How D.C. Police Lured Wanted Criminals in for Arrest by Offering Super Bowl Tickets
Anyone remember Operation Flagship? A friend of mine, Meredith, sent me over two TikTok videos that are going viral right now, revisiting the story of when the DC police sent Super Bowl tickets to wanted criminals in 1985 just to arrest them when they arrived at the stadium for the game.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Why is Meredith using TikTok when everyone knows by now that it’s nothing more than a Chinese spy machine? We’ll get into that another day but let’s be clear…Google, Amazon, Facebook, and hell, even Roomba vacuum cleaners along with probably every other app on your Phone is already tracking and selling your information a million times over. Get over it.
Anyways, the entire situation was called Operation Flagship, which was described like this on Wikipedia:
Operation Flagship was a joint effort by law enforcement to lure wanted fugitives by means of advertising and inviting them to Washington D.C’s convention center for a party and a Washington Redskins ticket giveaway on December 15, 1985.[1][2] The event purported to promote a new channel, Flagship International Sports Television. The first letters of this new channel were the same as the acronym for the Fugitive Investigative Strike Team of the United States Marshals Service.
Here are the viral TikTok videos…
Operation Flagship Part 1
Operation Flagship Part 2:
Honestly, we should be doing this type of shit more often but at some point over the last few years it appears that we no longer arrest people for committing crimes unless the FBI or CIA tricks you into actually committing a crime. Don’t ask for examples either (Michigan Governor Kidnapping, January 6th, Chinese Spy Balloons, UFOs, etc.) because I’m not going to sit here and prove to you what’s already right in front of your eyes anyways.
That’s for you to decide and if you haven’t taken the time to do that over the past two weeks, which were the slowest of the year for Philadelphia sports, then I don’t think I can help you. Regardless, there’s nothing better than an old bait-and-switch. How these criminals could fall for such a thing is beyond me. Think about it..
“Hey violent criminals that we can’t catch and somehow were able to avoid getting arrested for all of these years, can we interest you in free Super Bowl tickets?”
I also thought criminals talked and worked with each other, even more so when they are on the run. There wasn’t a single incident where two of the 3,000 criminals actually spoke to one another and coincidentally both won Super Bowl tickets?
It’s not shocking at all that a Super Bowl in DC had extra tickets to give away given the fact that the DC and the Commanders have and always will be an absolute dumpster fire. It is some what odd that they chose to use the 3,000 tickets just to arrest people instead of, you know, giving them to fans but whatever.
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