The American Civil Liberties Union of D.C. has sued the District in federal court on behalf of two photojournalists who say local police assaulted them using banned chemical sprays and stun grenades.
The District and eight unnamed members of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) are listed as defendants in the lawsuit filed Thursday on behalf of Oyoma Asinor and Bryan Dozier, both D.C. residents.
The lawsuit states the plaintiffs were injured by MPD officers as they covered a protest against police brutality and racial injustice that was held near Black Lives Matter Plaza on Aug. 29.
They say that police used chemical irritants and stun grenades on protesters and the press in violation of legislation passed the previous month banning the use of either at First Amendment-protected assemblies.
The lawsuit says Mr. Asinor was sprayed with a chemical again the following night while covering another demonstration at BLM Plaza. His lawyers say he was arrested and his possessions confiscated.
“MPD flagrantly used tactics that D.C. laws explicitly ban,” said Megan Yan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “It’s especially ironic that MPD responded to these demonstrations with the kind of violence that the protesters were protesting.”
The lawsuit charges violations of the Fourth Amendment, D.C. common law and the city’s D.C. First Amendment Assemblies Act, which prohibits the weapons. The complaint seeks a jury trial and damages.
The Office of the District Attorney for D.C., which represents the city in lawsuits, declined to comment on pending litigation.
Protests against police brutality and racial injustice were held around the U.S. last year after the videotaped murder in May of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a White police officer in Minneapolis.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, had the words “Black Lives Matter” painted in large yellow letters several days after the killing on 16th Street NW near the White House where demonstrators had been protesting.
Those protests continued into the summer. Both events referenced in the lawsuit occurred roughly a week after another Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and seriously injured.
Concerns over how police dispersed the demonstrators prompted the D.C. Council to pass emergency legislation in July 2020 updating the D.C. First Amendment Assemblies Act to ban certain tactics.
The legislation specifically prohibited MPD from using “chemical irritants,” such as tear gas, and “less-lethal projectiles,” including stun grenades, to disperse a constitutionally protected gathering.
Lawyers for the defendants say they suffer from severe psychological distress as a result of MPD’s actions, including experiencing anxiety attacks, and that Mr. Asinor now fears the police.
“Last summer, police turned D.C.’s streets into a war zone,” Mr. Asinor said in a statement his lawyers shared. “I found a voice photographing protests against police brutality but ended up fleeing it myself. The fact that MPD attacked, arrested me, and then held my camera for nearly a year for no reason sends a chilling message to everyone of what is at risk when they attend these demonstrations.”
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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