Crudup v. Dist. of Columbia
| Decision Date | 29 March 2023 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 20-cv-1135 (TSC) |
| Parties | DALONTA CRUDUP, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Plaintiffs Dalonta Crudup, Dontrey Bell, David Burns, and Joevantae Ramsey bring this case, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, against the District of Columbia and District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) Officers Sherman Anderson, Eddie Choi Brandon Joseph, Christina Laury, Mark Minzak, Justin Rogers Iatezaz Tariq, Nelson Torres, and John Wright. Plaintiffs who are all Black males, seek to hold the MPD officers individually liable, and the District municipally liable pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for violating Plaintiffs' constitutional rights and for alleged injuries from the District's so-called “stop and frisk” policy of searching young Black males for guns, without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Defendants have moved to dismiss all claims. Defs. Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 22. For reasons set forth below, Defendants' motion to dismiss will be DENIED.
Plaintiffs claim that MPD's Gun Recovery Unit (GRU), tasked with recovery of illegal firearms and apprehending individuals involved in gun related crime, unlawfully targets predominately Black neighborhoods and young Black males specifically. See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 16-19, 23, 27-28, ECF No. 14. They claim that the District has “established practices and procedures of several armed officers surrounding Black suspects without reasonable suspicion of a crime” to “intimidate suspects into consenting to a search that otherwise lacks reasonable suspicion for a stop.” Id. ¶¶ 20-21 (internal quotation marks omitted). Plaintiffs further accuse the GRU of “fabricating the reasonable suspicion or probable cause” required to conduct a search or seizure. Id. ¶ 22.
Plaintiffs claim the GRU consists of twenty to thirty officers, one or more detectives, and three sergeants, who report to the Narcotics and Special Investigations Division (NSID), which was headed by former MPD Chief Peter Newsham when he was Assistant Chief. Id. ¶¶ 5, 2526. Plaintiffs allege that GRU officers are “highly aggressive” and forceful in their policing approach and are “deployed in a manner calculated to convey force and authority well beyond that of an ordinary officer deployed in uniform.” Id. ¶¶ 33-34. GRU deploys “with numerosity of force,” they wear “tactical gear” instead of a “standard uniform,” their “[w]eapons are on display” when they engage with civilians, and they use “jump outs” to convey force. Id. ¶¶ 3538. The GRU banner and flag displays an image of skull and crossbones with a “bullet hole quite literally, dead-center in the forehead of the skull, with two handguns and two handcuffs on either side above the head,” and a ribbon that says, “VEST UP ONE IN THE CHAMBER.” Id. ¶¶ 41-48. These images depict the GRU's intentionally cultivated image, designed to “inflict terror on low-income communities of color,” especially Black communities. Id. ¶ 50. The GRU officers “celebrate their abusive authority over young [B]lack men,” as depicted by a MPD officer t-shirt that says, in part, “Let me see that waistband jo” and has a Sun Cross, “a racist hate symbol.” Id. ¶¶ 63-69.
Plaintiffs allege that “[a]s a matter of policy and practice, the GRU does not require its officers to possess reasonable articulable suspicion in order to approach and engage civilians,” and the policy is so “overt that it has been repeatedly acknowledged by District of Columbia Courts.” Id. ¶¶ 53-58 (). To the extent that officers bother to “formulate a request for a search in words nominally providing cover as a consensual request,” suspects have “little choice” but to comply. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 62, 70. Refusing an officer can lead to “dangerous or forceful consequences,” and ultimately the GRU “will compel the search anyways justifying the compelled search based on natural reactions to the aggressive officer approach or based on fabrications.” Id. ¶¶ 73-74.
Plaintiffs claim that in testimony before the D.C. Council on January 16, 2020, MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou confirmed MPD's policy, practice, or custom of racially targeting Black men. Id. ¶¶ 82, 84. Sergeant Djossou testified that she reported NSID's “illegal tactics” to her supervisors-including that officers were “violating 4th Amendment rights”-and was met with retaliation. Id. ¶ 85. In June 2018, she escalated her complaints to then Assistant Chief Robert Contee, who also retaliated against her. Id. ¶ 86.
Plaintiffs further claim that a June 13, 2018 GRU operation in the Deanwood neighborhood is an “illustrative example” of the GRU's “modus operandi of stop and frisk.” Id. ¶ 88. They contend that on that day, the GRU “staged a fake search and find operation” on a group of Black men who were sitting outside a barbershop. Id. ¶¶ 89, 91. GRU officers searched a man “who was ostensibly a member of the group but was in fact a plant . . . so they could find a gun and thus manufacture reasonable suspicion to search the other men.” Id. ¶ 91.
Plaintiffs allege that despite the fact that from 2013 to 2017 forty-seven percent of D.C.'s population was Black, Black individuals made up eighty-six percent of total arrestees, seventyeight percent of arrestees for driving without a permit, were arrested at ten times the rate of White individuals, and disproportionately arrested in over ninety percent of census tracts. Id. ¶¶ 120-22. Plaintiffs encountered difficulty ascertaining stop and frisk data because “MPD has sought to avoid disclosure even of basic statistics” regarding its stop and frisk practices, but “[a]s additional data has been produced from the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (“NEAR”) Act of 2016, the racial disparity is clear.” Id. ¶¶ 95, 123. Plaintiffs contend that the NEAR Act requires MPD to “collect detailed and comprehensive data about stops and frisks the police carry out on the streets of the District,” including fourteen categories of data for every stop. Id. ¶¶ 96-98. And they allege that to the extent NEAR Act data is available, it confirms “extraordinary racial disparities in the MPD's stop and frisk practices,” id. ¶ 110:
Plaintiffs also claim that television station WUSA9 and the American Civil Liberties Union have conducted their own analysis of NEAR Act data and/or body worn camera footage and “found similar racial disparities in arrest data” going back as far as 2013. Id. ¶¶ 117-19. On information and belief, Plaintiffs allege that “the statistics for the GRU's reported stops and frisk are even more extreme than the Department generally.” Id. ¶ 127.
Plaintiffs claim that on January 12, 2020, at around 11:30 p.m., Crudup was “walking alone” in the 2400 block of 14th Street, N.E., wearing a coat, a hooded sweatshirt, and a backpack with one strap over his shoulder. Id. ¶¶ 131, 133-35. Officers Choi, Minzak, Joseph, and Laury were driving an unmarked Chevy Malibu and approached Crudup from behind. Id. ¶¶ 136-39. The officers were not responding to a call but claim they were “seeking to match an individual with a recently reported crime” when, after observing Crudup for only a “moment,” they drove up behind him and “jumped out of their vehicle,” dressed in “tactical gear and display[ing] firearms and handcuffs.” Id. ¶¶ 140-42, 144-46.
Plaintiffs claim that Crudup lifted “his shirt and show[ed] his waistband” because Black men in his neighborhood have no other choice when approached by GRU officers. Id. ¶148. Laury asked Crudup, “‘you don't got no weapons on you?'” Id. ¶ 149. Crudup did not respond but submitted to a visual search and noticed that the officers had “formed a semi-circle in front and around him.” Id. ¶¶ 149-53. Laury asked Crudup, “‘Nothing in your bag?'” to which Crudup responded, “weed,” and refused to give Laury permission to search his bag. Id. ¶¶ 15457. At this point, Crudup was no longer “free to leave,” but he nonetheless “pivoted and took steps slowly backwards on the sidewalk away from the officers that were in the way of his path.” Id. ¶¶ 158-59. Choi then “extended his arm to block” Crudup's movement and continued to “intimidate[e]” Crudup. Id. ¶¶ 160-61. Choi asked if the officers could check for weapons and Crudup refused, but Laury “[m]anufactur[ed] a basis to justify” a search and said, “‘You see the way you are acting is real strange, the way you are bent back across the fence back here.'” Id. ¶¶ 163, 165.
Having surrounded Crudup with “no objectively reasonable basis to suspect [he] was in possession of contraband,” Officer Choi told Crudup that his backpack looked heavy. Id. ¶¶ 166 168, 170. Crudup responded by shaking his bag, and Choi said, “‘I heard an object inside'” and “took the backpack and conducted an illegal search, a pat down of the exterior of the bag.” I...
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