The Ghost of Pershing Park

THAT DAY IN September 2002, when D.C. police arrested hundreds of anti-globalization protesters in Pershing Park, continues to hang like a dark cloud over the city. The arrests, carried out even though demonstrators and bystanders had not been given an order to disperse, cost the city plenty. As part of a settlement, seven people caught in the roundup were paid a total of $425,000 by the city, Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey had to write a letter of apology to each plaintiff in a lawsuit against the city, and new police procedures -- induced by the D.C. Council -- were put in place.

The cloud, however, has not lifted. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Assistant Police Chief Peter J. Newsham, who ordered the cordoning off of the park and the arrest of the hundreds inside, can be held personally liable for his actions. Mr. Ramsey is not off the hook, either. The three-judge panel said more information is needed regarding the chief's participation in the event before the court can decide whether he can be granted personal immunity in the class-action lawsuit. Reverberations from the Pershing Park debacle are far from over.

The police action against the protesters was indefensible, although the chief and Mayor Anthony A. Williams defended the behavior of Assistant Chief Newsham and his officers at the time. Arresting people assembled in the exercise of their First Amendment rights without warning that an arrest was imminent or before issuing a request to disperse; retaining them with plastic handcuffs; taking them away in buses; and detaining them for as long as 36 hours not only violated their constitutional rights, it also seriously blemished a police department with an outstanding record in handling demonstrations. The chief issued a letter of apology to D.C. residents that we published a year ago. The court ruling makes it clear, however, that the city has some distance to go before police conduct with peaceful demonstrators is no longer an issue of public concern.

Just how far was brought home this week when the American Civil Liberties Union filed three lawsuits alleging that D.C. police falsely arrested and indiscriminately used pepper spray on demonstrators during last year's presidential inauguration. It doesn't help that the new lawsuits, as Henri E. Cauvin reports, have brought up some of the same issues that arose in the earlier class-action lawsuits against the police and the city. It remains to be seen how the new litigation will fare. Hanging in the air are the words of Chief Ramsey in his Jan. 30, 2005, Close to Home article: "I Am Sorry. We Will Do Better."