Ramsey's disregard for constitutional rights as Chief of the D.C. MPD was publicly condemned by the Council of the District of Columbia.

“We were just dumbfounded when we heard they had chosen Chief Ramsey,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund

Ramsey is "synonymous with militarized and repressive policing. If this task force is under his command, it does not stand a chance of substantially changing the status quo."

D.C. local media is reporting that Police Chief Cathy Lanier has activated 17 civil disturbance platoons and the special operations division (which include K-9, the bomb squad and the emergency response team), instructing that they will be working on Sunday and Monday in preparation for Ferguson-related protests.

Attorneys from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) on Oct. 4 filed a class action lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Kelly and the City of New York, charging mass violations of constitutional rights in the trap and detain mass arrest of 700 demonstrators on the Brooklyn Bridge this past Saturday, October 1, 2011. The lawsuit charges that the NYPD engaged in a premeditated, planned, scripted, and calculated effort to sweep the streets of protestors and disrupt a growing protest movement in New York.

Months later, Dave Lindorff reported for WhoWhatWhy, a document obtained in December 2012 from the Houston FBI office shows that the agency was aware of a plot to assassinate Occupy movement leaders—and did nothing about it.

It is impossible to overstate the importance and impact on fundamental free speech rights of the Brooklyn Bridge mass arrest lawsuit. It was filed on behalf of the more than 700 people who were illegally arrested during a peaceful march on October 1, 2011.

one of the officials recruited to consult on Ferguson, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who currently serves as president of both the Police Executive Research Forum and the Major Cities Chiefs Association, is known less for healing communities than for kicking up costly lawsuits over allegations of excessive force and false arrest against demonstrators and bystanders.

Hundreds of people arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in the early days of the Occupy Wall Street protests can proceed with their lawsuit against the police, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.