ACLU-DC in Court To Argue Against MPD’s Deficient Plan and Ask for Court to Order Immediate Compliance with Stop-and-Frisk Data Provision of the NEAR Act

The ACLU of the District of Columbia will be in D.C. Superior Court to continue arguing its motion for a preliminary injunction in Black Lives Matter D.C. v. Bowser. That case charges that Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Metropolitan Police Department have unreasonably delayed implementation of the stop-and-frisk data collection provision of the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act for more than two years. The plaintiffs – the ACLU-DC, Black Lives Matter D.C., and Stop Police Terror Project D.C. – are asking the judge to order MPD’s full compliance with the law. We need to show the judge that there is deep community concern that without a court order, MPD will never be fully compliant. Our presence alone will speak volumes.

WE NEED ALL OF OUR SUPPORTERS TO PACK THE COURTROOM!

WHEN: Friday, November 16, 2018 2:00 PM

WHERE: Superior Court of the District of Columbia

500 Indiana Ave. NW, Courtroom 519

Washington, D.C.

In March 2016, the District of Columbia enacted the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act of 2016. Stop Police Terror Project DC and Black Lives Matter DC were instrumental in the creation, passage, funding, and now implementation of the Act. One of its key provisions required the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to collect detailed and comprehensive data about stops-and-frisks the police carry out on the streets of the District. The collection of this data is crucial to ensuring that the police do not unfairly and unconstitutionally target people and communities of color when conducting these stops. The ACLU-DC filed a Freedom of Information Act request in February 2017 for the NEAR Act stop-and-frisk data, but MPD responded that the data collection requirement had not yet been implemented. Despite continued pressure, the MPD’s excuses and delays continue to this day.

Although Black people make up 47% of D.C.’s population, they remain the subjects of the vast majority of all stops, frisks, and uses of force in the District. A January 2018 D.C. Office of Police Complaints OPC report found that of the 2,224 total reported uses of force in Fiscal Year 2017 (October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2017), 89% involved a Black subject. A February 2018 investigative report from WUSA9 analyzed pre-NEAR Act data and found that approximately 80% of the stops involved a Black subject. Just this week OPC released its FY18 Annual Report that revealed officer misconduct complaints are up 78% since FY16, 780 complaints were received (the second consecutive year of receiving a record number of complaints), 501 new investigations were opened (more than any other year since OPC’s inception in 2001), and MPD use-of-force incidents have increased by 56% over the last five years, from 636 incidents in FY13 to 991 incidents in FY17

In May 2018 Black Lives Matter D.C., the Stop Police Terror Project D.C., and the ACLU-DC sued Mayor Bowser, Deputy Mayor Kevin Donahue, and Chief of Police Peter Newsham for failing to comply with the law. The lawsuit demonstrates that the defendants’ delay of over two years (and counting) in implementing the NEAR Act’s simple but critical data collection requirement is so unreasonable that judicial intervention is required.

The judge has ordered the government to share its plans for implementation of NEAR Act data collection, but these plans remain woefully deficient. MPD’s system will not guarantee that all the data is collected – in fact, 5 of the 14 data categories required by the NEAR Act are not required to be collected under MPD’s plan. MPD’s plan would also collect some of the data on body-worn cameras but not using a paper or electronic record; as a result, a person who wanted to be able to see the data for every stop would have to pay for and watch countless hours of video. Further, body-cam videos are generally kept by MPD for only 90 days, then purged. And MPD also proposes to collect some of the data by requiring officers to include it in an unstructured “narrative” where it will be difficult to extract and analyze to see whether MPD is policing all residents fairly.

In light of these concerns, the judge ordered MPD to explain itself further with another written report to the court and at a hearing on November 16, 2018. The November 16 hearing is where we the community will have a chance to show the judge we fully support the law’s data-collection requirement. So far, the judge has been reluctant to interfere with MPD’s operations, but he has also expressed frustration with MPD’s foot-dragging.

The November 16 hearing is our best chance to convince the court that, in light of what we have seen from MPD Mayor Bowser, and Deputy Mayor Donahue for nearly three years, full compliance will never happen without a court order.

The presence of members of the community in the courtroom will underscore the gravity of the issue District residents are facing and that the NEAR Act sought to address: police need to be held accountable for what they are doing on the streets and the only way to begin that process is comprehensive data collection. Showing up Friday, November 16 sends a message about the importance of this issue and the urgency of bringing MPD immediately into compliance with the NEAR Act’s data-collection mandate.

Tell everyone you know and let us know you are coming here.