The District has agreed to pay $8.25 million to the nearly 400 people arrested and hog-tied for up to 24 hours during a 2002 anti-globalization protest in Pershing Park. The settlement with the class action group led by the Partnership for Civil Justice was announced Tuesday.
The deal also requires the police department and the attorney general’s office to better track evidence following findings over the course of the seven-year lawsuit that officials destroyed evidence connected to the case. Plaintiffs will receive about $18,000 each.
“This settlement sends a message to police agencies throughout the country that there is a heavy price to pay for violating First Amendment rights,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice.
On Sept. 27, 2002, District police surrounded anti-World Bank protesters in Pershing Park, also ensnaring tourists and passersby.
Officers refused to let anyone leave and then stormed the park, arresting nearly 400 people and leaving some hog-tied — bound hand-to-foot — in a gymnasium for up to 24 hours. When the Partnership for Civil Justice filed the class action lawsuit, it was found that evidence had gone missing, including a “running resume” detailing every aspect of the police response to the protest.
Last month, a former D.C. police detective said in a sworn statement that Police Chief Charles Ramsey lied under oath when claiming someone else had given the order to break up the protest.
Attorney General Peter Nickles has placed most of the blame for the missing evidence on Thomas Koger, a senior assistant attorney general and lead counsel on the Pershing Park defense.
Now, police and the attorney general’s office will have to follow evidence procedures that Verheyden-Hilliard said should have been employed long ago.
Both agencies will have to log and index all materials collected in mass arrests into a newly created, District-funded computer system.
Safeguards will have to be put in place to ensure command center documents, like the “running resume,” are placed into evidence.
D.C. Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Kris Baumann said the settlement wasn’t enough.
“The city can’t be allowed to pay its way out of this,” Baumann said. “Without a criminal investigation, our credibility will be questioned forever.”
