On Sept. 27, 2002, approximately 650 activists and protesters were arrested in Washington, D.C., during a crackdown on protests of the start of the annual World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings. The legality of these arrests is still being debated, as evidence has emerged suggesting that not only did the D.C. Metropolitan Police illegally seek to “trap and arrest” the protesters without giving them a chance to disperse on their own, but also that the police department knowingly and deliberately destroyed and hid evidence pointing to their complacency in their scandal.
“From the start, discovery in this case has been plagued by the District’s repeated and continuing violations of the Federal Rules — from the loss or destruction of evidence to clearly unethical and potentially criminal false or misleading statements to the Court,” read the plaintiffs’ status report for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia case of Chang v. the United States, filed on May 14.
“Indeed, five years ago, even before some of the most audacious discovery violations had occurred, this Court called the case ‘the civil counterpart of Ted Stevens’ (Tr. of July 29, 2009 Hearing at 6), and told the District that it would face sanctions for its conduct.”
The plaintiffs in the case assert that the District of Columbia sought to escape municipal culpability for the arrests by alleging that the arrests were ordered by Asst. Police Chief Peter Newsham — who is now the head of the department’s Investigative Services Bureau — and by destroying or preventing the discovery of any and all evidence suggesting otherwise.
Based on conclusions on the “potential destruction of evidence regarding” the IMF protest arrests of September 2002 by federal Magistrate Judge John Facciola — who was appointed to serve as special master for this case — the District of Columbia either destroyed or intentionally hid the Joint Operations Command Center Running Resume, the recordings of radio runs from the arrests and video recordings relevant to the arrests.
The case of the IMF protesters has been an embarrassing and revealing one for the D.C. police force. In the civil case of Barham v. Ramsey, the Metropolitan Police Department was found to have arrested the protesters without probable cause and outside of due process.
According to the complaint, MPD Civil Disturbance Unit officers in full riot gear surrounded the protesters gathered in Freedom Plaza and Pershing Park on all sides, preventing their escape. Without alerting the protesters that they were in violation of the law and without allowing them due time to disperse, the police officers arrested indiscriminately — a violation of due process.
In 2002, then-MPD Chief Charles Ramsey told PBS Newshour that the MPD did give protesters verbal warnings to disperse. In testimony before Magistrate Facciola in 2013, current MPD Chief Cathy Lanier indicated that because of the missing evidence, she does not trust her police department to objectively investigate the loss of the case documentation.
“Anything that’s done in terms of an analysis would probably be safer if done by an outside entity. I didn’t want (the Metropolitan Police Department) to be involved,” said Lanier. The investigation was ultimately conducted by the FBI and the Secret Service.
The MPD would give those charged with minor offenses the option of either “post and trial” for non-demonstration offenses — meaning that the arrestee would be allowed to post bail and receive a trial date to question the legality of the arrest — or “post and forfeit” for demonstration offenses. “Post and forfeit” means that the arrestee must surrender his or her right to a trial to question the arrest as a term of his or her release. If the arrestee requested a trial, he or she would be denied bail and release. This disparate treatment between the protesters represented a violation of equal protection under the law.
The civil case also alleged that the MPD — as a federal agency (the District of Columbia is under the direct auspices of Congress) — fed identification information on the arrestees to the FBI, who used this to bolster its intelligence on political activists. The District of Columbia eventually agreed to an $8.25 million settlement, plus additional funds to implement a document management system to prevent the loss of evidence and documentation relating to mass demonstrations and protests.
The protesters gathered in 2002 to protest IMF interference in the developing world, which many see as destructive and contrary to the notion of a nation having the right to determine its own growth and path. Many feel that IMF funding compels developing nations to embrace American or Western sensitivities and interests. Many were also protesting the build-up that would eventually lead to the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Second Iraq War.