Military-Grade Weapons Were Used Against Black Lives Matter Protesters Without Warning in June 2020

The ACLU-DC will continue to defend and advance that right to ensure that all protestors’ voices can be heard without fear of violence.

Over a year later, some protestors’ phones still haven’t been returned.

The ACLU-DC, the Law Office of Jeffrey Light, and the District of Columbia filed court papers stating the District will pay $1.6 million to settle two demonstrators’ rights lawsuit, which were filed on behalf of journalists, legal observers, and demonstrators who protested the 2017 Inauguration.

The complaint, filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act on behalf of Dzhuliya Dashtamirova, a 23-year old woman who suffered injuries as a result of the maneuver, asserts the National Guard’s actions that evening was an assault.

Today civil rights groups filed a motion to add Chief Peter Newsham and unnamed D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers as defendants in Black Lives Matter D.C. v. Trump.

The ACLU and ACLU-DC had led a months-long campaign against the unconstitutional proposal.

The core of the ACLU-DC's case will proceed, including at least one claim about each of the types of misconduct our clients experienced that day: mass arrest, excessive force, injurious handcuffing, denial of detainees’ basic needs, and an intrusive search.

The amended complaint names 27 D.C. police officer defendants and adds two plaintiffs: a 10-year-old boy from North Carolina and his mother, who were peacefully demonstrating when he was knocked down and they were both exposed to pepper spray by D.C. officers.