WASHINGTON — The stories of people dissatisfied with the tactics of the D.C. police were at the center of a hearing at Howard University Wednesday night.
“The ACLU and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee have documented vast racial disparities in the arrest rates in D.C.,” said D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells, who chairs the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, which oversees the Metropolitan Police Department.
“Some of these officers treat the citizens who are black in this community like animals on a daily basis. They jump out on the street and confront us aggressively. They pull us from our vehicles for no good reason at all. They yank at our clothing violently while they search us for contraband,” said Patrice Sulton, with the NAACP’s D.C. branch.
Iman Hadieh, who describes herself as white and Palestinian, says that last Monday she was talking with a bunch of young black friends outside a bar along 14th Street in Northwest when jump-outs — police in unmarked cars — suddenly drove up and searched everyone in the group but her.
“I watched as these black Americans were stripped of their human and Constitutional rights right in front of God and everybody. This was an all-out assault on the black male.
