THE FEDERALIZATION OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT ended over a month ago, but MPD’s collaboration with masked federal thugs has continued. Why can’t they be held accountable to DC law? To address the ambiguity, Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau organized a public roundtable on Wednesday, October 29. Through hours of testimony provided to the DC Commission on Human Rights, residents revealed an unceasing tapestry of human rights violations committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), MPD, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other masked federal agents, in violation of the law and due process. When news of an ongoing federal attack reached the chamber during the roundtable — this time at the Georgia Ave–Petworth Metro stop — CM Nadeau asked community members to leave the chamber as Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto’s office threatened to call the cops on them when they circled the Wilson Building calling for help.
Testimonies recounted the terror wrought by ICE's recent operations in DC: families separated, children traumatized, neighbors harassed or disappeared. An organizer for DC Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid said they have received thousands of hotline calls and documentation emails on detainments and abductions since August. Meal delivery requests have also increased five-fold, as vulnerable people are afraid they cannot safely leave their homes.
How cops are cooperating with ICE and the Homeland Security agency isn’t exactly known. Yet, multiple witnesses at the hearing said they had seen MPD cruisers driving to a detainment followed by unmarked cars carrying ICE, or even MPD officers and agents riding in unmarked cars together. One witness said they saw MPD officers “taking direct orders from CBP [Customs and Border Patrol].” In one recent incident, a federal agent fired three shots into a car at a traffic stop — MPD agents removed the shooting from their official report. We do know federal agents also have access to MPD dispatches and are following their patrol cars to calls for service, as revealed atthe hearing. This gentleman’s agreement among goons allows the MPD to wield plausible deniability about when and where federal agents will show up.
Community members at the hearing called on Brooke Pinto, as chair of the Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, to address this public crisis. They rightly demanded the MPD obey DC’s Human Rights Act and Sanctuary Values Act, which forbid MPD from collaborating with ICE. “Will this council provide that oversight?” ANC 1B Commissioner Miguel Trindade Deramo asked. But above all, witnesses demanded that the Council and Mayor Bowser take responsibility, rather than hide from the ongoing federal assault on DC residents.
The military occupation of DC is not new. What is new is the faithless and cowardly manner in which its elected representatives have responded to this crisis. The October 29 hearing was planned and chaired by Brianne Nadeau of Ward 1, under her jurisdiction with the Office of Human Rights. Strictly speaking, it should have been Brooke Pinto’s responsibility. Pinto, however, secured her influence in the Council by exploiting a District-wide moral panic on crime to ram through the Secure DC omnibus last year. By unleashing MPD to use indiscriminate force and engage in discriminatory crackdowns, Pinto and her supporters on the Council paved the way for a police force gone rogue. The councilmember released a statement to DC News Now, saying that she “conduct[s] oversight of MPD every single day to ensure that the rights of District residents are protected.” Yet, it’s unclear what oversight looks like when MPD is gleefully participating in the kidnapping of residents and covering up shootings on behalf of federal officers. Until Pinto holds an oversight hearing as the public safety chair, these questions will go unanswered. And for now, she can’t be found.
Mayor Bowser is similarly ducking responsibility for her own failings. She has accepted Donald Trump's framing that this occupation is just a “surge of officers,” and she released an executive order on September 2 that requires ongoing cooperation between MPD and federal agencies on immigration enforcement indefinitely. This is happening despite multiple ANCs passing resolutions condemning just that cooperation for violating the DC Home Rule Act and Sanctuary Values Act. It is also happening despite stating at a September 10th news conference that "with the end of the emergency, [immigration enforcement] won't be what MPD does in the future." The supposed interest of these elected officials — Bowser and Pinto — in public safety, democracy, and their constituents has melted away. Or perhaps they never really cared.
Who knows what more the Council will do to stop DHS and the MPD. Human rights frameworks, as we have seen in the continuing genocide in Gaza, do not deliver on their own. There has to be the political will to back them up. Signs of a backbone emerging on the DC Council are still missing — this hearing was only arranged after submission of a petition from more than 300 affected parents and repeated demonstrations by community organizers, The 51st reported.
Before the hearing had ended, attendees had gotten word of federal agents pulling people off busses at the Georgia Ave–Petworth Metro station. After they briefed Nadeau on what was happening on the ground and attempted to show her the steady stream of photos and videos filling rapid response group chats, Nadeau opted to prioritize the hearing. She said that the people still testifying deserved to have their time. Though the testimonies are important, what's needed is more than rhetoric. One organizer phrased it best: “We know that everyone who is speaking or waiting to speak would be backing us in her pausing the hearing in order to take action.”
The group of organizers subsequently traveled from office to office within the Wilson Building, begging councilmembers to take a stand for their neighbors. Only the offices of Janeese Lewis George and Robert White responded with action. Already out meeting with constituents, both re-routed to the Georgia Ave–Petworth Metro station within minutes. Where other offices were merely despondent, Pinto’s office was hostile. Pinto's Chief of Staff Genevieve Fugere Hulick talked in circles as she recycled Pinto’s past press statements. All she promised was to call MPD on Pinto’s behalf once they left the office. When asked why Pinto’s engagements were more important than the safety of DC residents and why an oversight hearing has yet to manifest in the District, Hulick called building security on the organizers and threatened to call MPD as well.
Bourgeois press isn’t even doing their part. The Washington Post clearly did not listen to all that witnesses had to say, because their reporting on “DC residents [airing] grievances” made no mention of the Georgia Ave stops, Nadeau’s abrupt closure of the hearing, or the response of Pinto's office. The pressure to end this crisis is coming from the people, no one else.
At the opening of the roundtable, Dr. Tanya Golash-Boza of the University of California Washington Center asked, “Our city is being used as a test case for fascist tactics. If we allow them to continue here in the nation’s capital, what happens next?”
The question remains open.
If you have witnessed human rights violations by MPD or federal agencies, the Council is accepting written testimony here until 5:30pm on November 28. Chapter members interested in supporting future campaign plans should reach out to the Migrant Justice committee.
