Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, six former attorneys general, one current attorney general, and even Richard Belzer, who played Munch on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, weren’t enough to make the National Law Enforcement Museum a success. Just two months after its grand opening in October, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said that its museum a few blocks from the Mall in Washington was headed for default on some of the $103 million it borrowed in 2016. That kind of failure is rare in the $3.8 trillion municipal-bond market, and after two decades of planning and construction, it was a notably quick descent.
The museum counted on its high-profile backers’ fundraising prowess and the willingness of tourists to pay more than $20 a head. To survive now, it must get more visitors in the door. A lot more. In its first three months, the museum attracted only about 15,000 people. It’ll need 20 times that to meet its first-year goal. That’s no easy feat in a city with more than 160 museums—and during an era of widespread anger over police officers’ use of force.
