Alexander v. Gov't of D.C.
| Decision Date | 01 July 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 17-1885 (ABJ) |
| Parties | JOSEPH ALEXANDER, Plaintiff, v. GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Plaintiff Joseph Alexander is an African American man who was arrested in August of 2015 for violating a District of Columbia law that makes it unlawful for a person "[t]o crowd, obstruct, or incommode . . . [t]he use of any street, avenue, alley, road, highway, or sidewalk." D.C. Code § 22-1307. He has filed a lawsuit against the District alleging that he was falsely arrested in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and he has included claims on behalf of a proposed class of individuals charged with the same offense alleging that the law is unconstitutionally vague and that it is being enforced by the police in a discriminatory manner in violation of the Fifth Amendment. See Am. Compl. [Dkt. # 21].
On August 23, 2019, defendant moved to dismiss plaintiff's amended complaint, arguing that he had failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss [Dkt. # 24] ("Def.'s Mot."); Def.'s Mem. of P. & A. in Supp. of Def.'s Mot. [Dkt. # 24-1] ("Def.'s Mem."). Plaintiff opposed the motion. Pl.'s Opp. to Def.'s Mot. [Dkt. # 29] ("Pl.'s Opp."). For the reasons stated below, defendant's motion will be granted in part and denied in part. Plaintiff's claims about the deficiencies of the statute merely repackage arguments that have already been rejected by this Court and the D.C. Circuit, and Claims 2 and 3 will be dismissed. To the extent that plaintiff seeks to predicate municipal liability for an allegedly unconstitutional arrest on a vicarious liability theory or a failure to supervise the arresting officer, his claims will be dismissed. But if one resolves all inferences in favor of the plaintiff, as one is required to do at this stage, the claim of false arrest in Claim 1 must go forward, and plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts in support of Claim 4 to survive a motion to dismiss his claim that the District is liable based on its failure to act in response to a pattern of unconstitutional arrests that have become a matter of custom. The Court expresses no view as to whether plaintiff will ultimately be able to succeed on these claims, but it would be premature to dispose of them at this time.
On Saturday, August 8, 2015, at about 5:30 pm, plaintiff was standing in an alley that intersects with Benning Road in Northeast, Washington, D.C. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 25, 27. The alley comes to an end at a wide sidewalk where a popular convenience store and pay phone were located. Id. ¶¶ 27-33. Plaintiff states that he moved from the alley to the "intersection of the alley and the sidewalk" when Officer Frederick Onoja, a member of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, arrived on the scene. Id. ¶ 35. The complaint alleges that plaintiff was not blocking passage or presenting an obstacle to pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk; others were able to walk past him, including a woman walking two dogs. Id. ¶ 37. Officer Onoja approached plaintiff and told him to leave the area. Id. ¶ 38. Plaintiff alleges that "he did leave the area but over the next five minutes, [he] walked up and down the sidewalk a few times." Id. ¶ 39. Officer Onoja called for backup and soon, three officers arrived. Id. ¶ 40. They all stood by the alley while plaintiff came back down the sidewalk towards them. Id. When plaintiff passed Officer Onoja, the officergrabbed him from behind, and the other officers converged on plaintiff and handcuffed him. Id. ¶¶ 41-43. Plaintiff was arrested for a violation of D.C. Code § 22-1307, and transported to the Fifth District Police Station, where he was approved for release on citation. Id. ¶¶ 44-45. The D.C. Office of the Attorney General then "no-papered" - or declined to prosecute - the case. Id. ¶ 46.
D.C. Code § 22-1307 states: "[i]t is unlawful for a person, alone or in concert with others . . . [t]o crowd, obstruct, or incommode . . . [t]he use of any street, avenue, alley, road, highway, or sidewalk[.]" D.C. Code § 22-1307(a) (the "incommoding statute"). Plaintiff contends that he was not in violation of the statute because he was not crowding, obstructing, or incommoding anyone's passage through the sidewalk. Am. Compl. ¶ 49. He also alleges that the statute is "employed especially against young African American men in the community most frequently near areas such as the Trinidad area." Id. ¶ 104; see also id. ¶ 196. Plaintiff names other neighborhoods where the law has been heavily enforced, id. ¶¶ 115-27, and he details several other instances in which African American individuals were arrested for a violation of the incommoding statute. Id. ¶¶ 128-85.
The complaint goes into some detail about the history of the provision, which is one of several disorderly conduct provisions in the District, and circumstances that allegedly brought flaws in its enforcement to the District's attention. In 2010, the Council for Court Excellence ("CCE"), with other groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU"), the Office of the Attorney General ("OAG"), the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney's Office ("USAO"), and the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department ("MPD"), issued a report regarding the disorderly conduct statute, see D.C. Code § 22-1307, which included "incommoding" at that time. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 66-67. According to the complaint, the report recounted concerns expressed aboutthe vagueness of the law, and the CCE's suggestion that the word "blocking" be substituted for "obstructing," "crowding," or "incommoding." Id. ¶ 68. The OAG, USAO, and MPD disagreed, although they proposed that a mens rea requirement be added to the statute as well as a requirement that an officer issue a "stop blocking" order before making an arrest. Id. ¶ 71. Despite the concerns raised in the CCE report, the D.C. Council enacted the statute as it reads now, without "blocking" language, a mens rea requirement, or a "stop blocking" order requirement. Id. ¶¶ 76-77.
In 2011, a journalist was videotaping police officers on a sidewalk in Northwest D.C., and the police officers ordered him to leave, stating that he was blocking the sidewalk. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 80, 81. The sidewalk was approximately twenty feet in width. Id. ¶ 83. The incident gained widespread attention because, as plaintiff puts it, it was evident that ordering the journalist to move was "pretext to get him to stop videotaping" the police officers. Id. ¶ 81. The event led to an investigation into the issue of whether the statute was being enforced in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner. Id. ¶¶ 87-89. Plaintiff alleges that during that investigation, D.C. Council Member Mary Cheh wrote a letter to the Council stating that the MPD was enforcing the law arbitrarily. Id. ¶ 89. Plaintiff alleges that the D.C. Council did not take any steps to amend the statute or address the issue of arbitrary enforcement. Id. ¶ 91.
On February 1, 2012, the D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on the investigation and heard testimony from the ACLU. Am. Compl. ¶ 95. At the hearing, the MPD Director of Strategic Change testified that the Department had developed . Id. Plaintiff contends that "neither the written directive nor the online training session addressed the issue of whether partial blocking was sufficient to justifyan arrest." Id. ¶ 98. The D.C. Council recognized that additional training may be necessary, id. ¶ 99, but none was instituted. Id. ¶ 216.
Plaintiff also alleges that the MPD has received numerous complaints regarding the enforcement of the incommoding statute. From 2013 to 2017, the Police Complaints Board ("PCB"), which is the governing body of the Office of Police Complaints ("OPC"), received fourteen complaints alleging that officers had improperly issued "move along" orders or made unlawful arrests for violations of the incommoding statute. Id. ¶ 187. In a report submitted on May 22, 2017 to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, the PCB noted that a majority of individuals who filed complaints were African American. According to plaintiff, "[t]he PCB is concerned that MPD officers['] use of the Blocking Passage statute is disproportionately discriminating against these specific groups of people." Id. ¶¶ 189-90. Plaintiff alleges that the District has not taken any steps to remediate the issues identified in this report. See id. ¶¶ 214-17.
On June 26, 2017, the Court issued its decision in Agnew v. District of Columbia, 263 F. Supp. 3d 89 (D.D.C. 2017). In that case, plaintiffs Daryl Thomas Agnew, Rashad Bugg Bey, Alex Dennis, and Rayneka Williamson filed a complaint against the District of Columbia alleging that their constitutional rights had been violated when they were arrested and prosecuted pursuant to the incommoding statute. Id. at 91-92. They challenged the statute on its face on the grounds that it was unconstitutionally vague; the lawsuit centered around the allegation that the provision violated the Fifth Amendment because it encouraged arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. The Court found that the statute was not unconstitutionally vague, and because plaintiffs had failed to state a predicate constitutional violation, their 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim failed as well. Theplaintiffs appealed the decision on July 25, 2017. See Notice of Appeal [Dkt. # 44], Agnew v. District of Columbia, Civ. A. No. 15-0340 (D.D.C. July 25, 2017).
While the Agnew appeal was pending, plaintiff filed this case against the District of Columbia and Officer Onoja,1 Compl. [Dkt. # 1], including the following claims:
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