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Partnership for Civil Justice Files Lawsuit to Strike Down DC’s
Checkpoint Program
Class Action Lawsuit Challenges Constitutionality of Stops and Data
Collection
The Partnership for Civil Justice, a Washington DC-based public interest
law firm, filed a class action lawsuit today in the United States District
Court for the District of Columbia seeking an injunction against the
Metropolitan Police Department’s Neighborhood Safety Zone checkpoint
program.
The lawsuit asserts that the roadblock program instituted in recent
weeks is an unconstitutional suspicionless seizure of persons traveling on
public roadways in the District of Columbia. The lawsuit also challenges
the District’s use of these mass civil rights violations to collect and
aggregate data on the movements, activities and associations of law
abiding residents and visitors to the District and seeks expungement of
this information.
The checkpoints are an extraordinary expansion of police power to stop,
seize and interrogate individuals without any probable cause or suspicion
of illegal activity. They are also ineffective at stopping crime.
“People want their children to be able to walk the streets in their
neighborhood in a safe and secure environment. The District’s
military-style roadblock system was deployed, in part, to give the
appearance that the government is addressing this deeply felt need. But it
is neither constitutional, nor effective. There is an urgent need to
tackle the problems of violence, street crime, unemployment and education.
This roadblock does not address any of them,” states the Class Action
Complaint.
Copies of the Class Action Complaint, Mills v. District of Columbia
can
be read by clicking here, and the Memorandum of Law in Support of
a Preliminary Injunction can
be read by clicking here.
The attorneys on the lawsuit are Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl
Messineo, co-founders of the Partnership for Civil Justice. |
