Police safely remove man from Lanham overpass near polling place

Police negotiators spent hours Tuesday working to bring a man in crisis down from the fence of Whitfield Chapel Road as it passes over Route 50 in Lanham, a scene that disrupted traffic near a primary polling place but ended without injury. Prince George’s County Police Department first alerted the public at 5:17 p.m., said negotiators were communicating with the man and that there was no threat to the community, and urged drivers and voters to avoid the area if possible.

The polling place at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, 5128 Whitfield Chapel Rd., stayed open during the police response, even as the overpass and nearby routes were affected. Police later said the man had been safely removed from the bridge at 8:42 p.m. Just before 10:30 p.m., officers said John Hanson Highway and Whitfield Chapel Road had reopened.

The disruption prompted Maryland Department of Emergency Management and the Maryland State Board of Elections to acknowledge the situation and direct voters to other options. MDEM told voters who needed to cast a provisional ballot to go to the Prince George’s County Board of Elections at 1200 Mercantile Ln. #107 in Largo, MD 20774. County election officials also said voters could cast ballots in person at their assigned Election Day polling place or at an early voting center.

The incident landed on Maryland primary Election Day, when polls were open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and it came after Prince George’s County’s primary early voting period ran from June 11 through June 18. The 2026 primary followed a ballot-printing error that forced nearly a half million corrected ballots to be mailed.