Civil rights groups claim D.C. police aided clearing of Lafayette Square protesters on June 1
“We were not involved in the movement of the president — the unplanned movement of the president,” Newsham said the following day.
Court filings on Wednesday accuse D.C. police of deploying tear gas against demonstrators trying to leave the area and forcing them to turn back. They cited the experiences of a Virginia man, Dustin Foley, and his 15-year-old daughter, who joined the case.The lawsuit said Foley and his daughter came downtown to protest and deliver water and sandwiches to peaceful demonstrators gathered after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
When the Foleys fled Lafayette Square, they were confronted by D.C. police with chemical agents one block west at 17th and H streets NW and forced to turn back, the suit asserted.“The video footage we obtained and the experience of Mr. Foley and his daughter directly contradict Chief Newsham's assertions that D.C. police officers were not involved in the brutal assault on protesters the evening [of] June 1,” said Scott Michelman, legal director for the ACLU of the District of Columbia.
In a statement Wednesday, D.C. police reiterated that the agency “was not involved in the unscheduled movement of the President from Lafayette Square to St. John’s church,” but did not address the allegation that its officers deployed tear gas. D.C. police have said they were not in Lafayette Square, which is federal property, but did have officers on nearby city streets who confronted fleeing protesters. That included a D.C. police line along I Street NW between 15th and 17th streets NW, where arrests were made.
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