Did D.C. Police Go Too Far?
Legal Experts Debate Legality of Mass Arrests

By 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.