Good News About The New Guy: He LOVES Your Civil Liberties
Ramsey was the target of controversy when, on September 27, 2002, the MPD made a mass arrest of a large group of demonstrators who had assembled in DC’s Pershing Park to protest the World Bank and IMF meetings. The police enclosed over 400 people in the park and arrested them without ever ordering them to disperse or allowing them to leave the park. Many of the arrested were not actually demonstrators, but were journalists, legal observers, and pedestrians. On January 13, 2006, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the arrests violated the Fourth Amendment and that Chief Ramsey could be held personally liable for the violations.
Add up the rampant violence against cops already in place, a city chock full of weapons, and this lil’ nugget of info, and something is telling us that Stop N Frisk® is going to be a smashing success.
Wikipedia: Charles H. Ramsey
November 16th, 2007 at 2:34 am
While that situation was genuinely terrible, the description you’re quoting is just a tinge politically tilted. It’s not clear that he was personally involved, though the lack of internal fallout afterwards is Questionable.