Cameras, gas, and chaos on Inauguration Day in Washington. (photo: Mark
Tenally/AP)
DC Cops Used 'Rape as Punishment' After Inauguration Day Mass Arrests, Lawsuit
Says
By Alan Pyke, ThinkProgress
22 June 17
Wide array of unconstitutional tactics alleged in suit over chilling round-up
that hit peaceful protesters, journalists, and anarchists alike.
When black-clad marchers began smashing windows in Washington, D.C., on
Inauguration Day, the city’s police force — reputedly the best in the country
at upholding protesters’ rights during disruptive demonstrations — went nuclear.
Officers quickly deployed pepper spray, tear gas, and crowd-control grenades of
various types. The Metropolitan Police Department opted to “kettle” everyone on
the streets nearby the initial anarchist-driven property destruction, something
it does not, by reputation, make a habit of doing during protests.
The mass round-up swept the “Antifa” rowdy types together with many peaceful
protesters, journalists, and volunteer legal observers who turn out in bright
green hats to help uphold First Amendment rights at such events in the capital.
After hours of kettling, police arrested more than 200 people. All were
initially charged with felonies by the United States Attorney’s office, which
continues to pursue the vast majority of those cases.
This is how the public has understood what happened in the District on
Inauguration Day for the past five months. But that story undersells the full
scope of the MPD’s violent conduct that day, the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) alleges in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the city, police
department, police chief, and numerous yet-unnamed officers.
“Molestation and rape as punishment”
The “guilt by association” round-up and mass arrests, the liberal use of pepper
spray, and the kettling itself would all be constitutionally dubious enough on
their own, the ACLU’s Scott Michelman said Wednesday.
But the experiences of the lawsuit’s four plaintiffs — independent
photojournalist Shay Horse, volunteer legal observer Judah Ariel, and peaceful
protesters Elizabeth Legesse and Milo Gonzalez — suggest that MPD sought
physical and emotional retribution on the hundreds of people kettled, the ACLU
alleges.
An officer ordered Horse, fellow plaintiff Milo Gonzalez, and three others to
take their pants off before grabbing their testicles and then inserting a
finger into their anuses while “other officers laughed,” the complaint alleges.
Horse is a photojournalist, one of six reporters initially arrested and charged
whose cases have been dismissed.
“I felt like they were using molestation and rape as punishment. They used
those tactics to inflict pain and misery on people who are supposed to be
innocent until proven guilty,” Horse said. “It felt like they were trying to
break me and the others — break us so that even if the charges didn’t stick,
that night would be our punishment.”
In a statement responding to the lawsuit on Wednesday, the MPD defended its
reputation and maintained that all its arrests were proper.
“Each year, the men and women of MPD protect the rights and ensure the safety
of thousands of First Amendment assemblies, demonstrations and protests,” the
department said. While thousands demonstrated peaceably on Inauguration Day,
the statement went on, “there was another group of individuals who chose to
engage in criminal acts, destroying property and hurling projectiles, injuring
at least six officers. These individuals were ultimately arrested for their
criminal actions.”
The department also pledged that “all…allegations of misconduct will be fully
investigated.” Michelman said the ACLU welcomes that promise but doesn’t
exactly trust it.
“We have significant concerns that that won’t be sufficient, in light of repeat
problems MPD has had with arresting law-abiding demonstrators and
responding…with excessive force,” Michelman said.
The discovery phase of the new suit should allow the plaintiffs to identify the
names, ranks, and badge numbers of the specific officers they accuse of abusing
them physically and psychologically. But it’s also important to the plaintiffs
that such individualized accountability not shunt responsibility away from
supervisors and top brass. “The events of the day show a high degree of
coordination, suggesting the problems run deeper than the misconduct of a
handful of officers,” said Michelman.
The U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. declined to comment on how the lawsuit,
in which it is not named as a defendant, might alter the course of the 202
ongoing felony prosecutions it is pursuing related to Inauguration Day events.
A spokesman cited the office’s policy of never commenting on ongoing felony
cases.
“I came to D.C. to do a good thing”
Baltimore resident and fellow plaintiff Elizabeth Legesse still faces felony
charges stemming from her arrest that day. She detailed how she and other
peaceful marchers were suddenly herded into the kettle along with some of the
Antifa glass-smashers, kept there for hours, then eventually cuffed with
zip-ties so tightly that they cut her wrist and numbed her hands.
Legesse, who had come down from Baltimore to protest, said she was then dropped
into a holding cell with 20 other women and denied food and water through the
night.
“I came to D.C. to do a good thing: To express my concern about the direction
of our country,” Legesse said. “You would think that of all the cities in the
world, Washington, D.C., would respect my freedom of speech and right to
peaceably assemble.”
Even before the full depth of the alleged depravity of MPD officers’ actions
toward protester detainees was laid out in Wednesday’s suit, the rough crowd
control methods employed on Inauguration Day had alarmed protest law observers.
ACLU and National Lawyers Guild representatives told ThinkProgress at the time
that the department’s actions break from a long pattern of sensible, calm
response to protests — even ones that radically disrupt roads, businesses, and
private organization headquarters in the capital.
By dint of geography, MPD responds to far more mass demonstrations than any
other police department. Marchers without permits regularly take over streets,
sit in at organizational buildings, and even chain themselves to physical
structures in protest without prompting the sort of crackdown that followed the
Antifa provocations on Inauguration Day.
But MPD’s reputation for high standards on protester civil liberties coexists
with a less-prominent and darker track record in cases like this one, Michelman
said.
“When there are groups of people who protest only peacefully, demonstrations
that go off without a hitch, MPD does tend to handle those pretty well. They
tend to be prepared and respectful, and we commend them for that,” he said.
“The problem is when there’s a little bit of lawbreaking at a mostly peaceful
demonstration, the response from MPD is massive, it’s excessive, it’s
unjustified, and it’s unconstitutional. That’s what we saw on January 20.”
The indiscriminate targeting of reporters, legal observers, and peaceful
protesters along with those who had broken windows and assaulted officers is
not a one-off, he said. MPD reacted similarly to a World Bank protest in 2002
that went sideways. The city later paid $8.25 million to settle civil rights
cases brought by nearly 400 protesters. That case, known among local lawyers as
Pershing Park, was not the first multi-million-dollar payout by the District
over an episode that broke from MPD’s broader pattern of high-road protest
management.
For Judah Ariel, a plaintiff who was on hand that day as a legal observer and
described officers firing pepper cannons at the crowd he was in “like Al Pacino
in Scarface,” the experience felt like a betrayal from the place he’s chosen to
make his home.
“This is the city where I’ve chosen to make my home and raise a family. And all
of the sudden it felt like my police department, my government, had turned on
me without warning and without justification,” Ariel said.
“Wherever we live, the issues facing our country are too important and the
stakes are too high. All of us must feel free to protest and speak out against
the government without fear of retribution.”
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