FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Black Lives Matter DC press@dcblm.org
NO MORE CURFEW IN WASHINGTON, DC
Another victory for Black Lives Matter, DC! On Tuesday June 2, 2020, Black Lives Matter, DC filed for an Injunction against Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Peter Newsham for instituting a curfew effective on June 1, 2020 and June 2, 2020 from 7pm to 6am. The curfew led the Metropolitan Police Department, the Secret Service, the National Guard and various other Federal Law Enforcement Agencies to descend upon the District. Those Law Enforcement Agencies committed violent acts against protestors that could be considered felonies and war crimes if carried out in any other context.
“As an organization, we are outraged that the District would institute such a curfew and allow its police officers to participate in the terrorizing of protestors, said April Goggans, a Core Organizer with Black Lives Matter, DC. “Throughout the evening, protestors were tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, brutally assaulted, kettled, and forced into the homes of strangers until the curfew expired.”
On June 3, 2020, after receiving our lawsuit, the Mayor announced she was continuing the curfew starting at 11pm instead of 7pm. We objected to the 11pm curfew because protestors were exercising their First Amendment right. We urged the Mayor to add an exception and she refused.
On June 4, 2020, the Mayor announced she will not continue to impose a curfew for the District of Columbia! Our success here allows us to continue protesting police brutality without the threat of unlawful or unjust arrest.
“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’” –Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
We thank our tireless advocates including Andrew O. Clarke and Arianna N. White from A. Clarke Law, PLLC, Tasim Motala from the Civil Rights Center at Howard University Law School and Marques Banks from Law for Black Lives. #BlackLivesMatter
#DefendBlackLife
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