D.C. to Pay $1.6 Million to Settle Claims from 2017 Inauguration Day

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ACLU of the District of Columbia
@ACLU_DC
BREAKING: D.C. will pay $1.6 million to settle two lawsuits – filed by the ACLU-DC and @_LightLaw – on behalf of journalists, legal observers, and demonstrators who protested the inauguration of President Trump in January 2017. More here:

D.C. to Pay $1.6 Million to Settle Claims from 2017 Inauguration Day
Settlements Resolve Lawsuits Alleging False Arrests and Excessive Force FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: [e-mail]
acludc.org
7:06 AM · Apr 26, 2021

https://www.acludc.org/en/press-releases/dc-pay-16-million-settle-claims-2017-inauguration-day-demonstrations

WASHINGTON - The ACLU of the District of Columbia, the Law Office of Jeffrey Light, and the District of Columbia today filed court papers stating the District will pay $1.6 million to settle two demonstrators’ rights lawsuits—one brought by the ACLU-DC and the other by Jeffrey Light. The two lawsuits, filed on behalf of journalists, legal observers, and demonstrators who protested the inauguration of President Trump in January 2017, charged that former Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Peter Newsham and more than two dozen MPD officers engaged in or supervised constitutional violations including mass arrests of demonstrators without probable cause, unlawful conditions of confinement for detainees, and/or use of excessive force.

“I came with my son, then 10 years old, to the nation’s capital on Inauguration Day 2017 to exercise my constitutional rights and teach him about the power of protest,” said Gwen Frisbie-Fulton of North Carolina, who along with her son is a plaintiff in the ACLU-DC case. “Because of the wanton and brutal conduct of the D.C. police, we ended up fleeing through a cloud of pepper spray for doing nothing but chanting and holding signs. So the real lesson in how our Constitution works had to be this lawsuit, showing that there can be consequences when law enforcement abuses its power.”

The two lawsuits charged that, in response to vandalism and property damage caused by a small number of protestors, MPD officers rounded up, or “kettled,” more than 200 protesters—including many who had broken no laws—and detained them without access to food, water, or restrooms for up to 16 hours. Officers also deployed pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, concussion grenades, and stingballs— explosive devices that release smoke, rubber pellets, and a chemical irritant within a radius of approximately 50 feet—against protesters and others both on the street and inside the kettle, without warning and in circumstances where there was no threat of harm to officers or the public. The lawsuits asserted that MPD officers violated the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, and D.C. law. Along with Frisbie-Fulton and her son, the ACLU-DC represents demonstrators Elizabeth Lagesse and Milo Gonzalez, photojournalist Shay Horse, and legal observer Judah Ariel. The other lawsuit is a class action filed on behalf of more than 100 demonstrators.

"MPD’s unconstitutional guilt-by-association policing and excessive force, including the use of chemical weapons, not only injured our clients physically but also chilled their speech and the speech of countless others who wished to exercise their First Amendment rights but feared an unwarranted assault by D.C. police,” said Scott Michelman, Legal Director, ACLU of the District of Columbia. “The contrast between the over-policing of constitutionally protected speech on Inauguration Day 2017 and the under-policing of a violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol earlier this year starkly demonstrates law enforcement’s institutional biases. A diverse group of protestors with a left-wing message was subjected to a mass arrest without cause, whereas armed white insurrectionists with a right-wing message stormed Congress, and the police let them walk away.”

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