Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier made an appearance on NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt this morning for her regular meeting with the newsman to chat about goings-on with the D.C. police department. About three-quarters of the way through the hour, the topic of Lanier’s initial comments about the DC9 case — in which a man was allegedly beaten to death by five employees of the nightclub — came up.
On an appearance on the Kojo Nnamdi show last October, Lanier was quite cagey about the details which led her to dub the incident “brutal vigilante justice.” For the most part, Lanier mimicked those remarks today. But she did open up slightly, admitting that she felt pressure from the media to make a statement regarding Ali Ahmed Mohammed’s death.
“Since I can’t comment on what is still ongoing and underway, I can say that the morning that I gave the statement, there not only was several witnesses who were describing exactly what I commented on,” said Lanier. “But our charging document is what was the basis for the probable cause arrest. In that charging document, we have witnesses who described this beating.”
“I have to give a statement based on what we know at the time, and I always try and preface my statements with ‘this is what we know at this time’,” the Chief explained.
DePuyt then repeatedly pressed Lanier about potential charges against the five club employees involved in the case, but she again deferred to the Attorney’s Office.
“I think now, with the medical examiner’s ruling that it was a homicide, it’s up to the United States Attorney’s Office to figure out what’s the appropriate charges, and I can’t comment on that because it’s really not my place.”
Asked again, Lanier said she believed the USAO was “working diligently” on the case.
In other DC9 developments, we highly recommend reading Sommer Mathis’ mythbusting report regarding police and fire department “event chronologies” which outline the evening’s timeline — those documents show that Mohammed was unconscious and not breathing when he was transported to Howard University Hospital about thirty minutes after the incident occurred.
