UPDATE: The unidentified package was deemed non-threatening. The Metropolitan Police Department is reportedly investigating a suspicious package at the intersection of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW near Pershing Park. According to DDOT, 14th Street is blocked to traffic in both directions from Pennsylvania Avenue to F Street NW. more ›

The saga of the 2002 Pershing Park mass arrests goes on! Former D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey had little to say about the incident when he took the stand last week. ("I didn't order anybody to destroy anything," testified Ramsey last Thursday. Oh, really?) But Ron Harris, an attorney for the police during an investigation by the D.C. Council into the arrests, did have something interesting to confess: according to Fox 5, Harris admitted on Friday that he deliberately lied to the Council about the inclusion of a document in the case's evidence -- a document that still hasn't been found. Lovely. more ›

Spencer S. Hsu has the details on the final settlement in the lawsuit stemming from the mass arrests in Pershing Park in 2002. Yesterday's settlement will see the D.C. government pay another $8.25 million to around 400 people; a previous settlement of $13.7 million awarded in April for another similar incident in 2000 means that two Pershing Park arrests total the costliest total settlement ever paid by a city government in U.S. history. In addition to the cash, protesters who were part of the 2002 lawsuit will have their arrest records from the mass arrests expunged. In terms of where the money's going, named plaintiffs will get either $50,000 or $850,000, those who joined the 2002 lawsuit will get around $16,000, and lawyers for the plaintiffs will get about $2.5 million from the city. On the bright side, it's not there's in a budget crunch or anything happening around here in which we could really use an extra 22 million bucks! Oh wait, nevermind.
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Thanks to frequent Flickr contributor philliefan99 for dropping this heart-tugging video into our pool. These ducklings look they are just too little to hop over those big fountain steps in Pershing Park. All of them except for one, anyway. Spring in D.C. really brings an abundance of cute. We're keeping our fingers crossed for these little guys! more ›

If you haven't been following the step-by-step progress of the ongoing Pershing Park case (that's the 2002 mass arrests of some 400 protesters by D.C. police, still playing out in endless legal wrangling), you might have missed the big development that surfaced Wednesday. City Paper's Jason Cherkis has been all over this story for ... forever, and yesterday he reported that a new affidavit from veteran D.C. Police Det. Paul Hustler points the finger directly at former D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey as having ordered the arrests himself. This is a big deal, because Ramsey has consistently maintained in hearings and depositions related to this case that he did not order the arrests. This is the quote from Hustler's affidavit:

"As I walked closer, about five or six feet away from them, I heard Chief Ramsey say, 'We're going to lock them up and teach them a lesson.'"

Yesterday, City Desk provided a juicy bit of news for late on a summer Friday: Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) seems to think that D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles ought to hit the road: more ›

...oh wait, they actually just spied on peaceful anti-war and anti-death penalty activists. more ›

The park in downtown Washington, D.C. named for John "Black Jack" Pershing tends not to do justice to the man who achieved the highest rank of any person ever to serve in the United States military. In 1919, in recognition of his remarkable career and service in the Great War, Congress elected to promote General Pershing to the rank of General of the Armies—a position created especially for him. These days his namesake park, located... more ›

When Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty announced last week that he'd chosen Cathy Lanier, a 16-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department, to replace Charles Ramsey atop the police force, local media didn't do much more than throw together a few details on her history and her ideas for fighting crime in the District. The City Paper, though, started digging. The paper trail they uncovered on Lanier makes for relatively interesting reading by City Paper standards, though... more ›

Call it good luck -- outgoing Ward 3 council-member Kathy Patterson might have a second shot after being defeated by colleague Vincent Gray (D-Ward 7) in the race for council chair. The Examiner is reporting today that among many of the personnel changes that are expected in the coming mayoral administration of Adrian Fenty, Patterson might be taking over as deputy mayor for public safety and justice. If we couldn't have her on the council,... more ›

It was in April 2000 that tens of thousands of anti-globalization protestors marched the streets of the District, protesting the secretive meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and the policies that emerged from them. Police presence was heavy, given a nervous sense that Washington could go the route of Seattle, which just months prior had been the scene of an epic battle between protestors and police that had provoked an imposition of... more ›

D.C. being the place that it is, big protests such as those that took place this last weekend are a dime a dozen. Complaints of excessive use of force by police officers are just as recurrent, with protestors often charging that overzealous police officers step in to make arrests too quickly and offer few apologies or admissions of wrongdoing thereafter. This weekend seems to have been different in that regard -- WJLA is reporting that the District's Office of Police Complaints, which sent 11 employees out to monitor the protests, did not observe nor report any aggressive police behavior. While this newfound concern for freedom of expression and assembly stems from the shameful 2002 events at Pershing Park, it is at least reassuring to know that expressing dissent nowadays won't provoke a quick billy-club to the head. more ›

You're the mayor. Through both sheer fear and skilled negotiations the City Council and U.S. Congress bow to your every demand. Your city coffers are suddenly flush with millions of dollars in surplus. What do you do? What do you do? In yesterday's Outlook section, the Post toyed with this quasi-realistic scenario and offered a variety of Washingtonians the chance to play God with the reported $300 million budget surplus the District is set to... more ›

More than two years after 400-plus peaceful protestors were illegally arrested in Pershing Park during anti-globalization protests, a new District law protecting public assembly and the freedom of expression has gone into effect. The First Amendment Rights and Police Practices Act of 2004, whose enactment was spearheaded by Councilwoman Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), was signed on Jan. 27 of this year and took force on April 13. The law declares that protestors have the First... more ›

In more protest news, seven of the 400+ protesters unlawfully arrested in Pershing Park during the September 2002 protests against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank reached a settlement with the District of Columbia today in federal court. The seven plantiffs, including Adam Eidinger, his wife Alexis Baden-Mayer and her father Joe Mayer, will receive $48,000 each and a letter of apology from Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Charles Ramsey. (The photo is... more ›

With the Inauguration a little more than a week away, D.C. Council Chairman Linda Cropp is sending a bill to Mayor Anthony Williams for approval that would strengthen the rights of protesters in the District. more ›

Some details are emerging about activist groups' plans for protests during Bush's second inauguration. According to emails we've received, Pro-Life Groups have applied to hold a protest on the Mall, conservative groups are applying for a protest at Freedom Plaza (a center of protests in 2000), and ANSWER has applied for a permit for a protest in Pershing Park. Also, groups have begun planning a variety of feeder marches and the National Lawyer's Guild is planning to be involved providing legal observers. more ›

D.C. police have been in a touch of hot water lately. more ›