The U.S. Department of Justice and the ACLU of Washington, D.C. on April 13, 2022 announced a partial settlement that will require U.S. Park Police & the Secret Service enforcement officers to reform the tactics they use to disperse crowds.
The settlement was reached in a case brought by the ACLU on behalf of Black Lives Matter organizers and individual protesters who faced a militarized DC police response to their racial justice demonstration on June 1, 2020 in Lafayette Square in the nation’s capital.
The Trump administration reportedly ordered the clearing of the square so former President Donald Trump could walk to St. John’s Church to have his picture taken with a Bible amid a nationwide uprising over racial justice, and law enforcement agents used flash-band grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.
“The use of tear gas and rubber bullets will never be enough to silence our voices or diminish our duty to demand an end to police violence against Black communities. Today marks a win for the ongoing resistance against all attempts to subvert dissent. These attempts to disrupt the ability to organize for an end to the recurring trauma caused to Black communities by police attacks will not go unchallenged.”
April Goggans, a leader of Black Lives Matter D.C.
Protesters who faced the violent clearing of Lafayette Square two years ago reported that police fired rubber bullets directly at them, pushed them down with their shields, and released tear gas in the middle of the crowd. The use of tear gas caused vomiting in some of the participants.
According to the ACLU, under the settlement, the U.S. Park Police & the Secret Service will be:
- Barred from revoking demonstration permits absent “clear and present danger to the public safety”;
- Required to enable the safe exit of demonstrators if a protest is being dispersed;
- Required to provide audible warnings before dispersing a crowd;
- Required to wear clearly visible identification;
- Prohibited from displaying gas masks and shields at protests, unless approved by a high-ranking officer; and
- Barred from “guilt-by-association policing” with new guidelines making clear that “uses of force and dispersals are not normally justified by the unlawful conduct of some individuals in a crowd.”
Authorities will be required to enact the changes within 30 days.
