WASHINGTON — It's taken nearly three years to get answers about tactics used during a mass arrest in the summer of 2020 DC Police officers arrested nearly 200 people who were fighting for racial justice.
We now have more insight into what happened after the Metropolitan Police Department finally released documents and the results of an internal investigation. WUSA9 got the report through a tedious and exhaustive Freedom of Information Act request.
The MPD internal affairs investigation found that no officers used excessive force during that mass arrest of people breaking curfew. That night, 194 people were arrested.
The documents say that MPD officers on Swann Street used shields, batons and pepper spray. Those uses of force were all considered justified by internal affairs because they were lawfully enforcing Mayor Muriel Bowser's curfew order.
The images of hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters kettled into Swann Street Northwest are memorable. As were the images of dozens of them seeking refuge from arrest inside the home of resident Rahul Dubey.
Dubey said Friday that he is "heartbroken" by the report and that George Floyd and the protest that followed "continue to run in his heart and mind."
Seven protesters are suing he D.C. government claiming their first amendment rights were violated when MPD arrested them only for charges to be dropped.
Attorney James Devita is representing the protesters.
"The court needs to make some very difficult decisions on the curfew law," Devita said Friday. "Our argument is that the curfew law should have an exception for first amendment activities. It was designed to prevent rioting, looting and arson. My clients were doing none of those things."
The lawsuit is awaiting a judge's decision in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
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