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Defend J20 Resistance
April 1, 2017
On January 20th, 2017, at approximately 10:30AM, over two-hundred and fifteen protesters were illegally mass-arrested, or “kettled,” by the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC. The arrest took place on the corner of L and 12th Street during the inauguration of the Trump regime, in the proximity of an anti-capitalist and anti-fascist demonstration assembled to resist his administration’s transition into power.
The First Amendment Rights and Policy Standards Act, which took effect within DC in 2005, outlines official policy that the MPD is required to implement while interacting with persons exercising their first amendment rights, as those assembled gathered to do. As noted in the final Monitoring Report issued by the District of Columbia’s Police Complaints Board, in addition to the language of the Act itself, the arrest was in violation of several sections of Title I: the arrest was an indiscriminate round-up of those present on-site at L and 12th as the police lines closed off the public block (including medics, those seeking medical attention, legal observers, journalists, pedestrians, and PCB monitors themselves), as opposed to the arrest of specific non-compliant demonstrators against which they had probable cause (Section 107 C); they failed to provide audible warnings or dispersal orders to the crowd present for the demonstration, at no point did they inform those present for the demo that their first amendment protest had allegedly become “riotous” action, and they did not afford those seeking medical attention or those intending to leave the demo a means of exiting safely (Section 107 E.1); throughout the duration of the march and the arrest, the police used chemical weapons and concussion grenades (“stingers”) against protestors as a generalized method of crowd control, with or without provocation (Section 116 B.1-3); as the vast majority of the ~500-700 people in the crowd were engaged in peaceful demonstration - noted by legal observers of the DC National Lawyers Guild and journalist accounts of the arrest - it was likewise a violation for the police to corner off L and 12th with police lines, as there was no “probable cause to believe that a significant number or percentage of the persons located in the area or zone have committed unlawful acts” (Section 108); and as seven journalists were swept up in the arrest, the media were clearly not afforded full access to the site of the demonstration (Section 114 C.1-3).
The conditions of the arrest likewise violated the MPD’s own Standard Operating Procedures for Handling First Amendment Assemblies and Mass Demonstrations, updated in December 2016, which outlines that when a first amendment protest allegedly becomes “violent”, the police are required to issue warnings (at least one and up-to three) and dispersal orders prior to arrests - no warnings were issued at any time throughout the duration of the march (Section V.F.2 & IX.G.7). The SOP likewise re-enforces the language of the First Amendments Rights Act by stating that if arrests become necessary, they must be “of those individual law violators based on probable cause.” (Section V.F.3)
The illegal arrest was ordered by new Police Chief Peter Newsham. The District remembers Newsham as the Assistant Police Chief who ordered the mass arrest of over four-hundred nonviolent demonstrators that assembled in Pershing Park in 2002; protestors were hog-tied, detained for twenty-four hours, and ultimately released. No convictions were made, and the illegal arrest cost the District an ~$8.25 million settlement in a civil lawsuit. It is unclear how much this new arrest will cost the city or what promotion Newsham will receive for it, but what is clear is that he maintains his policy of “arrest first, indict later,” to the detriment of the District. On March 24th, four members of the Dead City Legal Posse testified against the appointment of Newsham, along with the Partnership of Civil Justice, which has filed a new lawsuit against DC MPD.
It is clear that this arrest was not only a distinct violation of city ordinance and police policy, but that it is an act of political repression from the Trump administration against those peoples who assembled for the demonstration. These charges are unprecedented, and an extraordinary reach by the prosecution. The demo that assembled at Logan Circle did so autonomously, in a moment of direct action against a hostile Presidential administration, a militarized State of police officers ready to follow orders, and a rising tide of far-right populism prepared to wield political violence against marginalized communities. Protestors have been shot in Seattle at anti-Trump rallies; mosques are burning across Texas; Jewish communities have seen waves of bomb-threats and harassment all around the country; family members are being detained and delivered to detention centers for involuntary labor, or shot dead in the streets. For those assembled, families, friends, and communities are under attack. The demonstration assembled on January 20th to stand in direct opposition to this assault, and to refuse both Trump’s “election” and the entire order that legitimizes him.
In this repression, the two-hundred and fifteen arrestees are not alone. Since last April, over eight-hundred water protectors have been arrested in Standing Rock, ND. A literal army of police units from across multiple states was deployed to ensure the colonization of Standing Rock for the benefit of Energy Transfer Partners and the Dakota Access Pipeline. In the face of this genocide, water protectors were subjected to police dogs, blows to the head and knees from batons, rubber bullets to the face and concussion grenades that maimed limbs, water cannons in below freezing temperatures, and hundreds of cases of hypothermia. For months, sniper rifles were set upon the encampments at least twenty-hours a day, despite being full of elders and children; this is neither unexpected or uncommon - a crowd of nonviolent protestors from the Festival of Resistance were similarly brutalized with chemical weapons by MPD during the kettle that included an elder and a seven-year old child. And yet, these thousands of Indigenous resistors and activists stood against the Dakota Access Pipeline in overwhelmingly nonviolent direct action. Now they face prosecution from grand juries of the very same kind that issued indictments for the L12 arrestees.
They are joined by the one-hundred and six people recently alleged by the California Highway Patrol to have participated in an antifascist confrontation with the Traditionalist Workers’ Party, a neo-Nazi political party, in Sacramento last summer where six people were stabbed. They are joined by over six hundred immigrants, from across eleven different states, who were ripped out of their homes and kidnapped from their families during ICE sweeps the mornings of February 9th, 13th and 14th. They are joined by dozens of people arrested and detained in Seattle and Chicago during the national airport demonstrations against the Muslim Ban. They are joined by the hundreds of prison-slaves already incarcerated - at Allegheny County Jail, Tecumseh State Correctional, and James T. Vaughn Correctional - who have organized labor strikes, set fire to mattresses, and seized temporary control of the prisons to demand humane living conditions, access to real medical care, and the provision of educational and rehabilitation programs.
The context, method, or tactics of these moments of resistance are inconsequential to the arrests made and to this regime; they arrest simply because people resist. But people must continue to resist, and to struggle against the institutions that place their families, their homes, and their lives under attack. We must resist illegal arrests; the grand juries convened to indict us; prosecutors who takes their orders directly from Trump; and most especially, we will continue to resist Trump himself and the systems that give him power.
This week, the week of April 1st to April 7th, we invite people everywhere to take action in a Week of Solidarity with political prisoners across the country, from Standing Rock to the District! You are the resistance!
For Immediate Release: December 21, 2017
Contact:
Sam Menefee-Libey of DC Legal Posse
Jude Ortiz of Defend J20 Resistance
The government still intends to try the remaining 188 Inauguration Day defendants on similar riot-related charges, but supporters are calling on the Trump administration to dismiss all of those charges. “This is a clear victory for the six defendants who were just tried and a rejection of the government’s attempt to criminalize dissent,” said Betty Rothstein of Defend J20 Resistance. “We’re continuing to call on the Trump administration to dismiss all charges against the remaining 188 Inauguration Day defendants awaiting trial.”
Supporters continue to point out that the government has attempted to chill political protest with high-level felony charges and that part of the punishment for defendant’s expressing their views is being forced to endure months of aggressive prosecution and a weeks-long trial. Most of the defendants facing trial have been working together to collectively defend themselves against the outrageous claims of the government, and will continue to do so.
The trial also underscored the extent to which the Trump administration was actively working with far-right and neo-fascist political groups like Project Veritas, Oath Keepers, Media Research Center and Rebel Media to criminalize and punish anti-fascist and anti-Trump activists. Despite what could be considered collusion with these groups, and the government’s attempt to criminalize “anti-establishment” views, the jury roundly rejected those efforts.
The next trial of seven Inauguration Day defendants on three misdemeanor charges—rioting, conspiracy to riot and one count of property detruction—has no scheduled trial date, but DC Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz will hold a status hearing on January 19. The next trial on the same felony and misdemeanor charges used to try the defendants acquitted today is scheduled for March 5.
For Immediate Release: January 19, 2018
Contact:
Sam Menefee-Libey of DC Legal Posse
Inauguration Day defendants and their supporters welcomed the mass dismissal of charges, but also object to the decision to continue prosecuting the remaining cases, which they consider just as politically motivated. The charges dismissed yesterday were done so “without prejudice,” a legal term that means the Trump administration can re-file charges at any time at its discretion.
“The mass dismissal of charges is certainly a victory and means that more than a hundred people no longer have serious felonies and decades in prison hanging over our heads,” said Andy Switzer, a defendant whose charges were dismissed yesterday. “However, the Trump administration is still aggressively pursuing politically motivated charges against 59 of us and we will continue to work together and fight the government’s attempts to stifle resistance.”
The government’s “Notice of Intent to Proceed” relied on “legal rulings by the court” and “the jury’s [acquittal] verdicts in the first trial” to explain why it’s no longer proceeding against 129 defendants. “Yet, the Trump administration is still determined to spend millions of dollars to go after its political opponents for an alleged $100,000 worth of property damage,” said Switzer.
Inauguration Day defendants from the next two trial groups will have a status hearing today at 11:30 a.m. at DC Superior Court before Chief Judge Robert Morin. This will be the first hearing after a jury acquitted six Inauguration Day defendants of all charges in December. Judge Morin is expected to assign new judges to the remaining upcoming trial groups as well as schedule new trial dates.
An investigation into misconduct by the Metropolitan Police Department on Inauguration Day—overseen by the DC Mayor’s Office of Police Complaints—began in October and is currently underway. Despite an official investigation into excessive police force used against the defendants and whether the arrests were lawfully carried out that day, the federal government is nonetheless continuing its prosecutions.
As an expression of support for Inauguration Day defendants, an international day of solidarity will be held tomorrow, January 20—the anniversary of the protests—launching a broader week of solidarity and fundraising.
Defend J20 Resistance is a large group of felony defendants arrested on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC and their supporters who have all agreed not to testify against each other and are working together to collectively defend themselves. DefendJ20Resistance.org is a product of their work.
April 1, 2017
On January 20th, 2017, at approximately 10:30AM, over two-hundred and fifteen protesters were illegally mass-arrested, or “kettled,” by the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC. The arrest took place on the corner of L and 12th Street during the inauguration of the Trump regime, in the proximity of an anti-capitalist and anti-fascist demonstration assembled to resist his administration’s transition into power.
The First Amendment Rights and Policy Standards Act, which took effect within DC in 2005, outlines official policy that the MPD is required to implement while interacting with persons exercising their first amendment rights, as those assembled gathered to do. As noted in the final Monitoring Report issued by the District of Columbia’s Police Complaints Board, in addition to the language of the Act itself, the arrest was in violation of several sections of Title I: the arrest was an indiscriminate round-up of those present on-site at L and 12th as the police lines closed off the public block (including medics, those seeking medical attention, legal observers, journalists, pedestrians, and PCB monitors themselves), as opposed to the arrest of specific non-compliant demonstrators against which they had probable cause (Section 107 C); they failed to provide audible warnings or dispersal orders to the crowd present for the demonstration, at no point did they inform those present for the demo that their first amendment protest had allegedly become “riotous” action, and they did not afford those seeking medical attention or those intending to leave the demo a means of exiting safely (Section 107 E.1); throughout the duration of the march and the arrest, the police used chemical weapons and concussion grenades (“stingers”) against protestors as a generalized method of crowd control, with or without provocation (Section 116 B.1-3); as the vast majority of the ~500-700 people in the crowd were engaged in peaceful demonstration - noted by legal observers of the DC National Lawyers Guild and journalist accounts of the arrest - it was likewise a violation for the police to corner off L and 12th with police lines, as there was no “probable cause to believe that a significant number or percentage of the persons located in the area or zone have committed unlawful acts” (Section 108); and as seven journalists were swept up in the arrest, the media were clearly not afforded full access to the site of the demonstration (Section 114 C.1-3).
The conditions of the arrest likewise violated the MPD’s own Standard Operating Procedures for Handling First Amendment Assemblies and Mass Demonstrations, updated in December 2016, which outlines that when a first amendment protest allegedly becomes “violent”, the police are required to issue warnings (at least one and up-to three) and dispersal orders prior to arrests - no warnings were issued at any time throughout the duration of the march (Section V.F.2 & IX.G.7). The SOP likewise re-enforces the language of the First Amendments Rights Act by stating that if arrests become necessary, they must be “of those individual law violators based on probable cause.” (Section V.F.3)
The illegal arrest was ordered by new Police Chief Peter Newsham. The District remembers Newsham as the Assistant Police Chief who ordered the mass arrest of over four-hundred nonviolent demonstrators that assembled in Pershing Park in 2002; protestors were hog-tied, detained for twenty-four hours, and ultimately released. No convictions were made, and the illegal arrest cost the District an ~$8.25 million settlement in a civil lawsuit. It is unclear how much this new arrest will cost the city or what promotion Newsham will receive for it, but what is clear is that he maintains his policy of “arrest first, indict later,” to the detriment of the District. On March 24th, four members of the Dead City Legal Posse testified against the appointment of Newsham, along with the Partnership of Civil Justice, which has filed a new lawsuit against DC MPD.
It is clear that this arrest was not only a distinct violation of city ordinance and police policy, but that it is an act of political repression from the Trump administration against those peoples who assembled for the demonstration. These charges are unprecedented, and an extraordinary reach by the prosecution. The demo that assembled at Logan Circle did so autonomously, in a moment of direct action against a hostile Presidential administration, a militarized State of police officers ready to follow orders, and a rising tide of far-right populism prepared to wield political violence against marginalized communities. Protestors have been shot in Seattle at anti-Trump rallies; mosques are burning across Texas; Jewish communities have seen waves of bomb-threats and harassment all around the country; family members are being detained and delivered to detention centers for involuntary labor, or shot dead in the streets. For those assembled, families, friends, and communities are under attack. The demonstration assembled on January 20th to stand in direct opposition to this assault, and to refuse both Trump’s “election” and the entire order that legitimizes him.
In this repression, the two-hundred and fifteen arrestees are not alone. Since last April, over eight-hundred water protectors have been arrested in Standing Rock, ND. A literal army of police units from across multiple states was deployed to ensure the colonization of Standing Rock for the benefit of Energy Transfer Partners and the Dakota Access Pipeline. In the face of this genocide, water protectors were subjected to police dogs, blows to the head and knees from batons, rubber bullets to the face and concussion grenades that maimed limbs, water cannons in below freezing temperatures, and hundreds of cases of hypothermia. For months, sniper rifles were set upon the encampments at least twenty-hours a day, despite being full of elders and children; this is neither unexpected or uncommon - a crowd of nonviolent protestors from the Festival of Resistance were similarly brutalized with chemical weapons by MPD during the kettle that included an elder and a seven-year old child. And yet, these thousands of Indigenous resistors and activists stood against the Dakota Access Pipeline in overwhelmingly nonviolent direct action. Now they face prosecution from grand juries of the very same kind that issued indictments for the L12 arrestees.
They are joined by the one-hundred and six people recently alleged by the California Highway Patrol to have participated in an antifascist confrontation with the Traditionalist Workers’ Party, a neo-Nazi political party, in Sacramento last summer where six people were stabbed. They are joined by over six hundred immigrants, from across eleven different states, who were ripped out of their homes and kidnapped from their families during ICE sweeps the mornings of February 9th, 13th and 14th. They are joined by dozens of people arrested and detained in Seattle and Chicago during the national airport demonstrations against the Muslim Ban. They are joined by the hundreds of prison-slaves already incarcerated - at Allegheny County Jail, Tecumseh State Correctional, and James T. Vaughn Correctional - who have organized labor strikes, set fire to mattresses, and seized temporary control of the prisons to demand humane living conditions, access to real medical care, and the provision of educational and rehabilitation programs.
The context, method, or tactics of these moments of resistance are inconsequential to the arrests made and to this regime; they arrest simply because people resist. But people must continue to resist, and to struggle against the institutions that place their families, their homes, and their lives under attack. We must resist illegal arrests; the grand juries convened to indict us; prosecutors who takes their orders directly from Trump; and most especially, we will continue to resist Trump himself and the systems that give him power.
This week, the week of April 1st to April 7th, we invite people everywhere to take action in a Week of Solidarity with political prisoners across the country, from Standing Rock to the District! You are the resistance!
For Immediate Release: December 21, 2017
Contact:
Sam Menefee-Libey of DC Legal Posse
Jude Ortiz of Defend J20 Resistance
DC Jury Acquits Six Inauguration Day Defendants on All Counts, Rejecting Government’s attempt to Criminalize Dissent
Supporters call for dismissal of charges against 188 remaining Inauguration Day defendants awaiting trial
Washington, DC – After two days of deliberation, a DC jury today found all six Inauguration Day defendants not guilty on all eight counts—-misdemeanor rioting and conspiracy to riot, and five counts of felony property destruction. Defendants Jennifer Armento, Oliver Harris, Britt Lawson, Michelle “Miel” Macchio, Christina Simmons, and Alexei Wood left the courthouse today elated by the outcome.The government still intends to try the remaining 188 Inauguration Day defendants on similar riot-related charges, but supporters are calling on the Trump administration to dismiss all of those charges. “This is a clear victory for the six defendants who were just tried and a rejection of the government’s attempt to criminalize dissent,” said Betty Rothstein of Defend J20 Resistance. “We’re continuing to call on the Trump administration to dismiss all charges against the remaining 188 Inauguration Day defendants awaiting trial.”
Supporters continue to point out that the government has attempted to chill political protest with high-level felony charges and that part of the punishment for defendant’s expressing their views is being forced to endure months of aggressive prosecution and a weeks-long trial. Most of the defendants facing trial have been working together to collectively defend themselves against the outrageous claims of the government, and will continue to do so.
The trial also underscored the extent to which the Trump administration was actively working with far-right and neo-fascist political groups like Project Veritas, Oath Keepers, Media Research Center and Rebel Media to criminalize and punish anti-fascist and anti-Trump activists. Despite what could be considered collusion with these groups, and the government’s attempt to criminalize “anti-establishment” views, the jury roundly rejected those efforts.
The next trial of seven Inauguration Day defendants on three misdemeanor charges—rioting, conspiracy to riot and one count of property detruction—has no scheduled trial date, but DC Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz will hold a status hearing on January 19. The next trial on the same felony and misdemeanor charges used to try the defendants acquitted today is scheduled for March 5.
#
Defend J20 Resistance is a large group of felony defendants arrested on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC and their supporters who have all agreed not to testify against each other and are working together to collectively defend themselves. DefendJ20Resistance.org is a product of their work.
For Immediate Release: January 19, 2018
Contact:
Sam Menefee-Libey of DC Legal Posse
US Attorney to Dismiss Cases Against 129 Inauguration Day Defendants, 59 Still Face Trial on Felony Charges
Govt narrows case to aggressively prosecute smaller group of protesters, continues to spend millions of dollars
Washington, DC – In a surprise move, the US Attorney’s Office announced the dismissal of charges against 129 of the remaining 188 Inauguration Day defendants facing trials. In a legal filing yesterday, the Trump administration indicated its intent to still proceed with its prosecution of 59 Inauguration Day defendants named in the superseding indictment filed in April.Inauguration Day defendants and their supporters welcomed the mass dismissal of charges, but also object to the decision to continue prosecuting the remaining cases, which they consider just as politically motivated. The charges dismissed yesterday were done so “without prejudice,” a legal term that means the Trump administration can re-file charges at any time at its discretion.
“The mass dismissal of charges is certainly a victory and means that more than a hundred people no longer have serious felonies and decades in prison hanging over our heads,” said Andy Switzer, a defendant whose charges were dismissed yesterday. “However, the Trump administration is still aggressively pursuing politically motivated charges against 59 of us and we will continue to work together and fight the government’s attempts to stifle resistance.”
The government’s “Notice of Intent to Proceed” relied on “legal rulings by the court” and “the jury’s [acquittal] verdicts in the first trial” to explain why it’s no longer proceeding against 129 defendants. “Yet, the Trump administration is still determined to spend millions of dollars to go after its political opponents for an alleged $100,000 worth of property damage,” said Switzer.
Inauguration Day defendants from the next two trial groups will have a status hearing today at 11:30 a.m. at DC Superior Court before Chief Judge Robert Morin. This will be the first hearing after a jury acquitted six Inauguration Day defendants of all charges in December. Judge Morin is expected to assign new judges to the remaining upcoming trial groups as well as schedule new trial dates.
An investigation into misconduct by the Metropolitan Police Department on Inauguration Day—overseen by the DC Mayor’s Office of Police Complaints—began in October and is currently underway. Despite an official investigation into excessive police force used against the defendants and whether the arrests were lawfully carried out that day, the federal government is nonetheless continuing its prosecutions.
As an expression of support for Inauguration Day defendants, an international day of solidarity will be held tomorrow, January 20—the anniversary of the protests—launching a broader week of solidarity and fundraising.
#
Defend J20 Resistance is a large group of felony defendants arrested on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC and their supporters who have all agreed not to testify against each other and are working together to collectively defend themselves. DefendJ20Resistance.org is a product of their work.
Copyright © 2017, 2018 Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in
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