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Pershing Park Suit Settled; Better Evidence Management Required
dcogcadmin | December 16, 2009
In a similar arrangement to an earlier settlement, the District of Columbia has reached an agreement with plaintiffs in one of two remaining cases claiming civil rights violations in mass arrests at Pershing Park in 2002. The District will pay $8.25 million to the plaintiffs, resulting in a per-plaintiff payment of about $18,000. In addition, the city must implement a host of new evidence tracking measures in an effort to avoid a repeat of the mishandling, even destruction of records and delays in production of records that occurred during the case. As reported in the City Paper, these include:
*The D.C. Police Department and the Office of the Attorney General centrally log and index all materials connected in future mass demonstration cases.
In a similar arrangement to an earlier settlement, the District of Columbia has reached an agreement with plaintiffs in one of two remaining cases claiming civil rights violations in mass arrests at Pershing Park in 2002. The District will pay $8.25 million to the plaintiffs, resulting in a per-plaintiff payment of about $18,000. In addition, the city must implement a host of new evidence tracking measures in an effort to avoid a repeat of the mishandling, even destruction of records and delays in production of records that occurred during the case. As reported in the City Paper, these include:
*The D.C. Police Department and the Office of the Attorney General centrally log and index all materials connected in future mass demonstration cases.
*The District must fund a document management computer system that would log evidence.
*The District must safeguard and index and maintain D.C. Police Department command center documents and other essential materials such as the running resume, radio dispatches, and video evidence.
*Every six months for three years, the District must issue reports on its progress in these areas to Partnership for Civil Justice attorneys.
