On June 16, 2023, The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), and its Center for Protest Law & Litigation, filed an opposition to the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss in Ferris et al v. D.C., stating:
“The justification for this indiscriminate use of dangerous weaponry against peaceful protestors, as can be seen by Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, is the claim that some other protestors somewhere or elsewhere, including at different times or locations, engaged in misconduct. The Defendants’ argument is telling, inappropriately using extrinsic and inadmissible hearsay from cherry-picked portions of articles to describe misconduct at places as far away as Tenleytown and Georgetown, at completely different times, treating all protestors interchangeably, generically, and indiscriminately — just as the police did in the underlying events and as a matter of practice.”
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), and its Center for Protest Law & Litigation, filed the federal lawsuit against the District of Columbia back in February 2023, challenging the Metropolitan Police Department’s “repressive and violent tactics including the authorized indiscriminate use of ‘less lethal’ projectile weapons against peaceful protestors and bystanders, gratuitously and without notice or warning and in order to intentionally retaliate against and inflict pain upon protestors challenging policing in our society.”
The lawsuit seeks to end the MPD’s unconstitutional and punitive tactics of indiscriminately deploying less lethal weapons, including maiming projectiles, into crowds of persons engaged in First Amendment protected activities, in particular those challenging racist police violence.