DC official blasts police for stopping and frisking Black men
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A Washington, DC Neighborhood Commissioner is accusing local police of dirty stop and frisk practices that violate residents’ civil rights.
District 7 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Anthony Lorenzo Green called out the DC Metropolitan Police Department for planting an undercover cop to justify the unconstitutional searches, reports WUSA9.
A video showed police confronting a group of men and asking them to consent to a search outside of a Barber and Beauty Salon. Green sent a letter to DC Chief Peter Newsham.
Newsham responded to Green in an email promising a full investigation.
“Commissioner Green – thank you for bringing this matter to my attention. I will ensure that a full and complete investigation will be conducted. If police misconduct is sustained, we will take the appropriate measures to address. The Metropolitan Police Department is committed to fair, unbiased and constitutional policing. I am hopeful that the community we serve doesn’t take any single incident of police misconduct and attribute that behavior to all of the men and women of this agency. I will ensure that you and CM Gray are kept abreast of the results of our investigation.”
Green said in the video recording of the incident that the man, an alleged undercover cop, was approached and questioned by police and consented to a search. He was surrounded by a group of other black men and the police found a gun in his waistband—but it was reportedly all a setup.
The police then told the group of Black men because one guy had a gun, they now had the right to search them all. However, many of them protested, but police persisted and forcibly arrested two of the men who refused to give consent.
According to reports, no other weapons were found by the police.
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DC Police deny any wrong doing and say the man with the gun was not a police officer.
“We reviewed the BWC footage associated with this incident. Despite some claims, the subject that was stopped and found to be in possession of the gun was not a police officer. The gun in his waistband was determined to be a BB gun. During a further search of the scene we did recover what was believed to be PCP and marijuana,” said DC Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Dustin Sternbeck.
“We will continue to review the footage to determine if the actions of our officers were appropriate.”
According to a yearlong WUSA9 investigation, a majority of the people who are stopped and frisked by DC Police are African-American.
WUSA9 found that eight out of 10 of the people stopped by police were Black and the district has fallen woefully short in implementing measures to prevent racial bias. A law passed in 20176 was designed to track the stop and frisk instances in the city, but the DC police has failed to use the system to better protect their residents from this type of racism.
