But on the very next day Grant was speeding so fast through Georgetown in an area West was patrolling it took the officer an entire block to slow the president down.
Grant apparently greeted the officer with a smile and looked like a “schoolboy who had been caught in a guilty act by a teacher.”
West informed the president he’d violated the city’s speeding laws, again.
“I cautioned you yesterday, Mr. President, about fast driving, and you said, sir, that it would not occur again,” West reportedly told Grant. “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 duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest.”
The president and other speeders were taken to the local police station. Officers at the station were reportedly unsure if they could charge a sitting president if he’d not been impeached.
In the end, Grant paid a $20 bond but didn’t show up to court.