D.C. Circuit Ruling: Washington D.C. Police Chief May Be Held Personally Liable for the Mass Arrest of Nearly 400 People
Court also rules that the Sept. 2002 mass arrest of protestors and passers-by violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the plaintiffs (from nlg.org)

On September 27, 2002, the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, working with federal law enforcement authorities, undertook a political sweep and mass arrest of people who were engaged in, or in proximity to, First Amendment protest activities against the IMF and Wo rld Bank and the war in Iraq. The police trapped and arrested nearly four hundred protestors, NLG legal observers, tourists and passers-by in Pershing Park in downtown Washington, D.C. Despite never being allowed to leave the park, and no order ever being given for people in the park to disperse, all those swept up were charged with "failure to obey" an unidentified order that was never given.

The D.C. Circuit ruled that "The mass arrest at Pershing Park violated the clearly established Fourth Amendment rights of plaintiffs. . ." The Court of Appeals ruling rejected the appeal by Chief of Police Charles H. Ramsey, in which Ramsey claimed that he should not be held personally liable for these sweeping constitutional rights violations, clearing the way for a trial on Ramsey's responsibility. The Court also upheld the District Court's denial of qualified immunity to Assistant Chief of Police Peter Newsham who also commanded the arrests.

Plaintiffs, who are representative s of a certified class action, Barham et al. v Ramsey et al, are represented by Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo of the Partnership for Civil Justice (PCJ), also litigating on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee.

"A police badge is not a shield from personal responsibility. Those who use their authority to target and jail others for engaging in free speech and political action must know that they cannot act with impunity," stated Ms.Verheyden-Hilliard. "This ruling is a vindication for the Barham plaintiffs who have been steadfast in insisting on accountability at the highest levels for this massive violation of constitutional rights."

Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild said: "The unlawful tactics of law enforcement, including mass false arrests of persons exercising their First Amendment rights, are being challenged by NLG lawyers across the country. The government, by not seeking restraint of such beh avior, has acted as a cheerleader for police who regularly use excessive force and abuse their authority to silence dissent. The ruling in Barham is a landmark step in holding top police officials accountable." In this appellate case, PCJ successfully defeated the defendants' arguments that they could treat the protestors and those in proximity as a group, using a criminal enterprise theory to justify the mass arrests. The Court agreed with plaintiffs that the defendants had failed to show a required particularized probable cause for each individual taken into custody, noting that they had failed to present evidence that such probable cause existed for even a single one of the hundreds of arrests.

PCJ has filed a series of lawsuits challenging the practices of the District of Columbia M.P.D., the F.B.I., and other law enforcement agencies which, acting jointly, participate in unconstitutional tactics to disrupt lawful protest and assembly and unlawfully use mass arrests as a means to sweep political activists off the street and truncate demonstration activity.

The case is Barham et al. v Ramsey et al., No.04-5388, slip opinion (D.C. Cir. Jan 13, 2006). The opinion is available at www.JusticeOnline.org.