AUT: Fwd: [AWIP] Finally Wash Post does something right--article: Did D.C. Police...

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>  Did D.C. Police Go Too Far?
>  Legal Experts Debate Legality of Mass Arrests
>
>
>  a Washington Post Staff Writer
>  Tuesday, October 1, 2002; Page B01
>
>
>  Legal experts differed yesterday on whether police
> exceeded their authority
> by arresting a large group of anti-capitalist
> protesters for the actions or
> theats made by a few.
>
>  Most of the complaints about Friday's arrests
> seemed to center on events in
> Pershing Park, at 15th Street and Pennsylvania
> Avenue NW. There, several
> hundred people, including protesters who had marched
> from elsewhere in
> downtown, participants in a "bicycle strike" and
> curious bystanders were
> gradually encircled and arrested.
>
>  "You've got to arrest people on the basis of their
> individual violations of
> law," said Herman Schwartz, a law professor at
> American University. "You
> can't just sort of surround a public park and say,
> 'Everyone in here, you're
> presumed to be prepared to shut down the city.' "
>
>  Abraham Dash, a University of Maryland law
> professor, said that threats to
> shut down the city might have given police a reason
> to arrest demonstrators
> -- if they were blocking streets and proper warnings
> were given.
>
>  Protesters "started out by giving probable cause,
> just by saying what they
> were going to do," Dash said.
>
>  Anti-capitalist activists threatened for weeks to
> shut down the city on
> Friday. The D.C. police vowed to stop them. But when
> the big day came, the
> confrontation was over by lunchtime.
>
>  When three days of protests against the World Bank
> and the International
> Monetary Fund ended Sunday, slogans had been
> spray-painted on some buildings,
> two windows had been smashed, a few streets had been
> closed. And 654 people
> had been arrested.
>
>  Protest organizers held a news conference yesterday
> to allege that D.C.
> police went too far to keep the peace, making mass
> arrests with little cause
> and no warnings and in some cases snatching up
> bystanders along with
> protesters.
>
>  "People are being arrested for pre-crime, being
> arrested for their
> thoughts," said Mark Goldstone, an attorney for some
> of the protesters, who
> compared the situation to the film "Minority
> Report," in which "Precrime"
> police arrested people for crimes they would have
> committed in the future.
>
>  He decried what he called the "Ramsey Plan," saying
> D.C. Police Chief
> Charles H. Ramsey had protesters arrested en masse,
> then detained them so
> they would miss other demonstrations.
>
>  Ramsey said yesterday that the mass arrests were
> justified because of
> individual acts of lawbreaking -- blocking streets
> or failure to obey an
> officer -- and as a precaution, citing threats to
> disrupt downtown.
>
>  "They can't come here and say they're going to shut
> down the city, and then
> turn around and get angry when they're not allowed
> to," Ramsey said.
>
>  No permits were issued for any of the
> demonstrations Friday, he said. Most
> of the protesters were charged with minor offenses,
> including failure to obey
> a police order, parading without a permit, and
> incommoding, or blocking
> streets and sidewalks.
>
>
>  Prosecutors said yesterday that fewer than a dozen
> protesters remained in
> custody. Many simply "posted and forfeited" -- a
> procedure that required them
> to pay a fine of $50 or $100 to be released.
>
>  John Passacantando, the executive director of
> Greenpeace, said he biked to
> Pershing Park on Friday morning because he was a
> "student of movements." He
> said he then found himself surrounded by police in
> riot gear, with those in
> the park given no warning that they were breaking
> the law and were going to
> be arrested.
>
>  "There was never a command. There was never a
> bullhorn" used by police, said
> Passacantando, who was arrested for failing to obey
> an order, then released
> after he paid $50.
>
>  Washington Post reporters in Pershing Park did not
> hear any police commands
> to disperse or warnings that arrests would be made.
> Riders from the "Bike
> Strike" appeared to be directed by police into
> Pershing Park, but Ramsey said
> the bikers chose this destination on their own.
>
>  D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), who
> chairs the Judiciary
> Committee, asked Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) in a
> letter yesterday, "Why
> was the decision made to apparently make these
> arrests without first warning
> the demonstrators to disperse . . . ?"
>  Ramsey said police "gave them all the warning we
> feel we needed to give
> them." He said that those in the park had been seen
> blocking roadways and did
> not obey orders to clear the streets.
>
>  Ramsey has said that he did not start Friday
> planning to make arrests but
> was eager to contain the protesters -- especially
> given the threats to
> disrupt traffic and the breaking of two windows by
> demonstrators that morning
> at K Street and Vermont Avenue NW.
>
>  Mary Cheh, a law professor at George Washington
> University, argued that if
> the same police tactics had been used "against the
> Million Man March, or the
> Million Mom March . . . people would have been quite
> irate."
>
>  She said there seems to be more public support
> Friday for the police actions
> because the IMF-World Bank demonstrators aren't seen
> as being from mainstream
> protest groups.
>


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