Anti-Israel protesters held a violent demonstration outside the DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C., last November. Now, some protesters are suing D.C. police for allegedly using excessive force. Police responded to the protest with “immediate, unprovoked violence,” the suit claims.
Six police officers were injured in the clash, which occurred as Democratic lawmakers attended a campaign reception inside the DNC headquarters. Protesters blocked the exits to the building, and Capitol police advised officials inside the building to shelter in the basement, before escorting some of the lawmakers out in cop cars. All House buildings were shut down as a result of the demonstration. Even progressive leaders (including Hakeem Jeffries of New York) admitted in a joint statement that “some protesters escalated their activity in a manner that exceeded a peaceful demonstration.” Police charged one protester with one count of assault on a police officer: Ruben Arthur Camacho, 24, who slammed a female officer against a wall and then punched her in the face. Camacho, who said he was “just defending himself,” only received 48 hours of community service.
When entrances and exits to a private building in which members of Congress have gathered are blocked, it seems only reasonable to expect that Capitol police, with memories of January 6 still fresh in their minds, drag protesters away from that building. Protesters were “trying to gain entrance to the building,” a police report said. One protester acknowledged to the Washington Post at the time that police told the crowd to move away from the exits, but did not warn the group there would be consequences if they failed to move away from the exits.
The lawsuit against D.C. police alleges that protesters were at the DNC headquarters to “talk” with lawmakers, not to block exits. Meet the plaintiffs: Samantha Rise Roberson (they/them), a multi-racial black, nonbinary organizer and teaching artist; Tamar June, a Jewish Voice for Peace psychotherapist; Sonalee Rashatwar (they/he), a social worker; Alden Dirks (they/them), a queer mycologist and anti-war activist; Veronica Mosqueda, a community organizer who believes that “all freedom struggles are deeply connected”; Sharmin Hossain, a Muslim organizer; Treacy Gaffney, a peace activist; Noelle Gorman, a legal assistant; and Bethany Gen (they/them), a Chinese-American graduate student.
The whole case is made a tad complicated by the pronoun situation. An officer “sexually assaulted Sonalee Rashatwar by groping Sonalee’s breasts before pushing [the protesters] to the ground and using their bikes to trap them against a parked car,” according the the lawsuit, which also claims that officers “sexually assaulted protesters, including by intentionally and forcefully groping Plaintiff Sonalee Rashatwar’s breasts. They also strangled Plaintiffs Alden Dirks and Veronica Mosqueda with their bare hands.”
Police “relied on the same tactics the Israeli military uses to stifle dissent,” and even “strangled protesters with the keffiyehs they wore around their necks,” which “physically and symbolically” suppressed their speech. Plaintiffs were “traumatized and scarred by the officers’ brutality, which chilled their participation in First Amendment activities for weeks or months after the protest.”
Sam Rise, who “spent hours hot-gluing thousands of electric candles to a banner, to commemorate the lives” of Palestinians who died in Gaza, is a “mixed race Black gender-nonconforming person who wore their natural hair out in a gray Afro.” Sam’s cease-fire banner was “snatched” away by police, and although Sam “continues to organize and protest, they are now hypervigilant when they attend direct actions. Public spaces of grief and mourning of Palestinian life are now infected with a fear and memory of police brutality.” Tamar now shudders when people do so much as touch her shoulder, which, “based on her experience as a psychotherapist,” she recognizes “as a lingering sign of psychological trauma from the strangulation,” which she said happened when an officer grabbed the keffiyeh around her neck. Sonalee has anxiety, depression, and sleeplessness from the encounter with police. Veronica, at her therapist’s advice, took medical leave from her job from January through March 2024, and “during this time . . . her mental health deteriorated.”
Anti-Israel protesters are now focused on disrupting the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, including plaintiff Sam, who said that “to dismiss us or erase us as myopic is going to be the biggest mistake that the Democratic National Committee could make in 2024.”