BLM Group Settles Lawsuits After Feds Agree To Change How They Respond To Protests

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Park Police and the Secret Service agreed on Wednesday to update and clarify the way they respond to protests. This action resolves four civil lawsuits filed over the last two years by Black Lives Matter DC and 13 protesters related to the June 1, 2020, racial justice demonstrations at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.

The two federal agencies said they would include specific identification of their officers when responding to protests and set limits on the use of non-lethal force.

“The federal government is committed to the highest standards for protecting civil rights and civil liberties in any federal law enforcement response to public demonstrations,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, in a release. “These changes to agency policies for protest responses will strengthen our commitment to protecting and respecting constitutionally protected rights.”

Based on the updated policy, the Park Police will:

• Require officers to wear fully visible badges and nameplates including on outerwear, tactical gear and helmets;
• Implement guidelines concerning the use of non-lethal force, including de-escalation tactics;
• Adopt clearer procedures for issuing dispersal warnings and permitting demonstrators to disperse; and
• Strengthen pre-event planning and on-site coordination between Park Police and other law enforcement agencies.

Within 30 days, the Secret Service will amend its policies to: "provide that the fact that some demonstrators have engaged in unlawful conduct does not ordinarily provide blanket grounds for use of force, crowd dispersal or declaration of unlawful assembly."

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs said in a release that the agreement resolved a portion of the four separate lawsuits it and other civil rights groups had brought against the federal government on behalf of Black Lives Matter DC and 13 protesters.

"The suits were filed after hundreds of people demonstrating against police brutality and Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd in Lafayette Square, the park in front of the White House, were violently dispersed, without warning or provocation, by U.S. Park Police and other federal and local enforcement officers using chemical irritants, rubber bullets, smoke bombs, flash grenades, and a baton charge," Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs said, in its release.

Most people may remember the June 1, 2020, demonstrations for the actions of former President Donald Trump, who walked from the White House to St. John's Church to hold up a Bible for photographers.

“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,” said April Goggans, Core Organizer of Black Lives Matter D.C., in a release. “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.”

An internal review released in June 2021 claimed the crowd had not been cleared by force for the purposes of the photo-op.

Instead, the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General determined the Park Police and Secret Service had started constructing anti-scale fencing earlier in the day in response to protests on May 30 and 31, in which 49 Park Police officers were injured and property was damaged.

The Trump Administration confirmed that then-Attorney General William Barr gave the order to disperse the demonstrators, according to the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs release.

The settlement does not cover claims for damages against Barr or Park Police incident commander Mark Adamchik, who ordered law enforcement to respond to the demonstrators forcefully, according to the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs release. Claims had also been filed for damages against line-level officers with the Arlington Police Department and the Metropolitan Police Department, who had followed Adamchik's command.

In the aftermath of the June 1 protest, the Rev. Gini Gerbasi of St. John's Church-Lafayette told Patch she saw hundreds of people were peacefully demonstrating, venting their pain over racial inequality, police brutality and George Floyd's death, yet causing no harm.

By 6 p.m., on June 1, the patio outside the church was anything but that. National Guard military police stormed the protesters, who rushed the patio for eyewashes, water and paper towels. She turned to a seminary student, who also is a trauma nurse, in disbelief.

"I was coughing, her eyes were watering, and we were trying to help people as the police — in full riot gear — drove people toward us," Gerbasi wrote on Facebook.

The rector went on to criticize Trump and the response by federal law enforcement officials.

"I am DEEPLY OFFENDED on behalf of every protester, every Christian, the people of St. John's, Lafayette Square, every decent person there, and the [Black Lives Matter] medics who stayed with just a single box of supplies and a backpack, even when I got too scared and had to leave," she said on Facebook.