Geographic isolation defines Point Lookout State Park. Located at the southernmost point of St. Mary's County, Maryland, the park encompasses more than 1,000 acres of marsh, pine forest, and beaches. For law enforcement, the terrain poses immediate operational hurdles. There is only one road in and one road out.
When an active safety alert strikes, Maryland Natural Resources Police cannot simply cordon off a single parking bay. An armed suspect in the interior marsh or near the civil-war-era fortifications can easily slip between campsites or cut off civilian access to the mainland. Tactical teams must shut down the spine of the peninsula at Scotland, Maryland, several miles north of the park entrance, before sweeping southward.
Campers stationed in the park's 143 wooded sites found themselves cut off from the mainland as deputies deployed heavy cruisers across both lanes of Route 5. The park perimeter security plan required officers to isolate incoming traffic while staging patrol vessels offshore to monitor the coastline along the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay.
