For D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles, Pershing Park isn't over. Though the city's top lawyer had just settled a big lawsuit with 400 plaintiffs over the mass arrests that took place on Sept. 27, 2002, there is another, more stubborn suit sitting out there.
Attorneys in the Chang case represent just four plaintiffs. But these [...]
On September 27, 2002, D.C. Police surrounded some 400 individuals in Pershing Park. Those individuals were rounded up without warning, arrested, and transferred to the police academy where they were hogtied for hours [See our Boss Hogtie cover story on the incident].
Sally Norton, a nurse in town for a conference at the nearby Marriott, had [...]
After D.C. police mass-arrested about 400 people at Pershing Park on Sept. 27, 2002, they hog-tied their quarries, cuffing their right wrists to their left ankles. The restraint left the arrestees in painful, circulation-stopping positions.
Surely there was a good reason to treat these peaceful protesters and passersby like pork, right? Like, they were a threat [...]
D.C. Police Union Chief Kristopher Baumann has reviewed Ret. Judge Stanley Sporkin's report on the missing and/or destroyed evidence in the Pershing Park case. Baumann says he has concluded that there can be only one next step: The case should be referred to the Department of Justice.
“There needs to be an independent prosecutor set up," [...]
Late last Friday, Ret. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin's investigative report [PDF] on Pershing Park was made public. The long-awaited document totaled 18 pages and included findings based on interviews with 14 individuals. Legal Times declared the report's conclusions "fairly modest." The report found no smoking gun, WaPo observed. After a quick read of the report, [...]
Ret. Judge Stanley Sporkin's investigation into the missing and/or botched evidence in the Pershing Park case has been released. The 18-page report is not a whitewash as we had speculated it would be (mea culpa, Judge Sporkin). While the judge failed to name names and definitively conclude what exactly happened to the running resume and [...]
The District today petitioned a federal judge to return control of the city's public school transportation system to local authorities.
According to today's filing, a "first class school transportation system" has been established under court administrator David Gilmore and "it is now time to return control of this function to the government elected by the citizens [...]
Today, Abdul Karim Khanu was found guilty in federal court of tax evasion. Khanu, 42, had been a prominent nightclub owner. At one point, he operated DC Live, Platinum, and H2O. Now, he is facing a maximum of 10 year prison term.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office:
"Khanu owned and operated two [...]
AG Peter Nickles push to have the city's child welfare system removed from federal court oversight has hit a road block. In a very non-shocking report [PDF] released today, the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) has found huge gaps in CFSA's foster-care system.
CSSP is the court-appointed monitor. Its reports are the fuel [...]
Are you hazy on the events of Sept. 27, 2002 when D.C. police arrested 400 people in Pershing Park? Do you want to read about what it was like to be hogtied for hours?
Are you unsure what exactly a running resume is? Would you like to know just how the District lost or destroyed crucial [...]
In a few days, retired judge Stanley Sporkin will issue his report on the discovery abuses in the Pershing Park cases. It seems unlikely that he will find out just who destroyed the running resume and erased key portions of the radio communications on Sept. 27, 2002. So how will authorities get to the bottom [...]
Within 20 minutes of a hearing in federal court this afternoon, the District and plaintiffs attorneys settled a class-action lawsuit stemming from mass arrests and a police raid during the April 2000 anti-globalization protests—two years before the mass arrests at Pershing Park. This suit involves roughly 600 people arrested. The District agreed to a record [...]
Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan warned AG Peter Nickles: "You're playing games with the wrong judge." Sullivan was referring to the AG's near endless stall tactics in the Pershing Park cases. These tactics include attempting to preventing depositions from being taken, and fighting the release of documents to the public. But [...]
On November 17, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan confronted AG Peter Nickles on his recent attempts to bar witnesses from being deposed and for general feet dragging in the Pershing Park cases [PDF].
Sullivan ordered depositions to take place. He then stated that there would be serious penalties levied against the District if it failed [...]
An affidavit filed today in U.S. District Court raises questions as to whether former D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey may have committed perjury in his sworn testimony about the Pershing Park fiasco. Ramsey had repeatedly stated in depositions that he had not ordered the mass arrest of approximately 400 people during the Sept. 27, [...]
