Police Misconduct
ACLU Challenges Another "Contempt of Cop" False Arrest: Transit Police At Fault, Suit Says, In 2011 U Street Incident
January 26, 2012Lawrence Miller saw his friend, Dwight Harris, thrown from his wheelchair last June 2011 by Metro Transit Police, and he spoke up--asking the officers why; urging them to take more care of a disabled person; and questioning why a peaceful U Street vendor lay bloody on the sidewalk. Police told him to be quiet and he turned to leave.
Even so, despite committing no crime and aopparently just for asking his questions, Miller was arrested and locked up, charged with inciting a riot and assaulting an officer--charges a prosecutor tossed out at the first opportunity.
- Full Story
- Topics: Featured, Police Misconduct
ACLU Wins Apology for Photographer: Guard Hassled Him Snapping HUD Headquarters Building
October 03, 2011ACLU commended the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently for promptly acknowledging a weekend guard was wrong ordering an amateur photographer to stop taking pictures on a Sunday afternoon on 7th Street, S.W., in Washington, DC, across the street from the dramatic HUD headquarters building.
*Arrested for disturbing the police, I
November 10, 2010Update (November 10): trial has been postponed to March 7, 2011, because of the hospitalization of one of the District of Columbia's lawyers.
Lindsay Huthnance was arrested for disorderly conduct after wondering aloud how eight or ten D.C. police officers were fighting crime by being in a convenience store at midnight. A jury trial is scheduled to begin on November 15, 2010, before Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth in Courtroom 23A of the U.S. Courthouse at 333 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Disturbing the police II
September 11, 2010We represent Pepin Tuma, a young lawyer who was falsely arrested for disorderly conduct by D.C. police simply because he chanted “I hate the police” while walking near a group of police officers on the street. When Mr. Tuma asked why he was being arrested, the arresting officer explained, “Just shut up, faggot.”. Our lawsuit seeks compensation from the District of Columbia and the arresting officer, and “punitive damages” from the arresting officer for his outrageous conduct.
Challenging police terrorism
September 11, 2010This lawsuit against the District of Columbia and 34 D.C. police officers seeks compensation for the 4 a.m. violent entry and search of a home in the Trinidad neighborhood of Northeast D.C. by a police SWAT Team. Police entered by smashing two windows and tossing in stun grenades, then battering open the front door and metal gate from the inside to let in more police. The homeowner, a longtime female D.C. Public Schools employee, was held on the floor at gunpoint, half-naked, while police turned every room of her three-story house upside-down; her basement tenant was treated similarly. No evidence of crime was found.
Ready, Fire, Aim!
September 11, 2010The Njoroge family legally immigrated to the U.S. from Kenya. Fourteen months later a large squad of riot-geared Montgomery County police officers broke into their apartment at 4:30 a.m., put the mother on the floor in handcuffs, broke into the bedroom and put the 13- and 16- year-old girls on the floor in handcuffs, ransacked the apartment—finding nothing —and then realized that their search warrant said apartment 201, not 202. Oops!
After pre-litigation negotiations failed to obtain a reasonable offer of compensation we sued Montgomery County and the officers involved for breaking into the wrong home. After the court denied the County’s motion to dismiss the case the County agreed to settle.
