Above photo: Washington DC protest against placing the MPD under federal control and the deployment of federal law enforcement in the city. staff/Fight Back! News.
Washington, DC – On the evening of Wednesday August 13, the DC Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (DCAARPR) organized a demonstration in Ward 7, a primarily Black ward, and one of the most overpoliced sections of the city.
As organizers set up their table and speakers, a police agent in an unmarked car across the street tried to discreetly photograph attendees and license plates. As soon as he was approached by organizers with cameras, he covered his face and sped off. This encounter foreshadowed a pattern that would be repeated throughout the night of police fleeing when confronted by the people.
The demonstration was called in response to President Trump’s racist executive order which placed DC’s Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and deployed hundreds of federal law enforcement officers into the nation’s capital. Since the plan was put into motion, the federal and local officers have almost exclusively patrolled Black and brown neighborhoods.
The crowd that gathered at DCAARPR’s demonstration lit up the rainy atmosphere chanting, “MPD, KKK, FBI, they’re all the same!”
Kristen Bonner, a leader within DCAARPR, opened up the program attacking Trump’s desperate attempt to terrorize Black and brown people in DC, stating, “In this city, which was built by Black people, every person of conscience is called in this moment to rise up, to protect their neighbors and themselves, and to fight back!”
Demonstrators also heard from David Black, a DC native who was incarcerated for 26 years after being wrongfully convicted based on wrongdoing of MPD cops. He described how a key witness in his original trial finally came clean a few weeks ago, asserting that MPD officers beat him and threatened his family in order to coerce him into falsely testifying against Black all those years ago.
Black’s experience of injustice at the hands of DC police was echoed by DCAARPR Co-chair Jon Abraham, who told the crowd about the Butler family, who are five Black brothers who were attacked by MPD and are now facing felony and misdemeanor charges for defending each other against their attackers. Abraham told the cheering crowd, “Defending yourself against racist police violence is not a crime!”
The protest showed the need and desire for DC statehood and community control of the police. There are connections between DC’s lack of home rule and Washingtonians’ vulnerability to racist police violence, because with statehood and community control of the police, the community would be able limit MPD collusion with the federal government. As the program went on, several paddy wagons and motorcycle officers waited nearby, menacingly, while ten-car police gang caravans circled the surrounding neighborhood relentlessly, running red lights and blocking traffic.
Shortly after the event, DCAARPR organizers witnessed a gang of 20-plus law enforcement officers, including ATF, FBI, Park Police, HSI, and Black MPD officers pull over a Black man for nothing. When they confronted the officers with their phones out, the officers quickly covered their faces, let the man go, and sped off.
A few minutes later, the same police gang pulled over another man in the same neighborhood for a bogus traffic violation. Again, when the organizers confronted them with cameras, they covered their faces and sped away without arrest, proving that their mission has nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with terrorizing Black communities.
After the confrontation, one of the local residents cheered the organizers for confronting the police. She highlighted how ridiculous the police looked riding around with ten cars “These cops out here acting fools because of Trump’s white ass. Every one of them cops gonna get paid with our taxes for pulling over one Black man.”
