ACLU, Protester Sue D.C. National Guard Over Helicopter Use In 2020 Protests

[In It to Win It]

https://dcist.com/story/23/03/14/aclu-lawsuit-national-guard-low-flying-helicopters/

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the D.C. National Guard for its use of military-grade helicopters on local protesters during 2020’s demonstrations against police brutality.

The D.C. ACLU filed the suit on behalf of 25-year-old Dzhuliya Dashtamirova, a protester who said she incurred injuries from the Guard’s low-flying tactics on June 1, 2020, which blew dirt, glass, and debris into the air.

“It kind of really took over my mind, it was scary,” sys Dashtamirova, who came up to D.C. from Baltimore on June 1 protest with a friend. “I had a migraine that lasted a few weeks, I had no relief from my migraine medication. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus at work.”

Dashtamirova said she and her friend were marching in D.C, largely avoiding any confrontations with police. If a road was blocked off, she said the group redirected.

“We wanted to keep it as peaceful as possible, and everybody just stay together and make sure everybody was safe,” Dashtamirova tells DCist/WAMU. “That’s how it was for the first few hours.”

Shortly before 10 p.m., the group was headed south from around Gallery Place when they noticed helicopters flying low.

Link to tweet

[republianmushroom]

1. like it

[crickets]

2. I'm so glad someone is finally suing over this.

Sending military helicopters of any kind to harass a crowd is way, way over the line.

https://www.justsecurity.org/78053/the-national-guard-at-lafayette-square-and-the-january-6th-attempted-insurrection-fixes-for-the-fy2022-ndaa/

August 31, 2021

While the Trump era exposed weaknesses in many U.S. institutions and resulted in the proliferation of reform proposals from organizations like ours, relatively little attention has been paid to much-needed reforms to the domestic deployment of the National Guard. The brutal crackdown on nonviolent demonstrators on June 1, 2020, at Lafayette Square and the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, provide important lessons about how and when the National Guard is (or is not) deployed domestically, its command structure for domestic deployment, and the Guard’s legal authority when it acts. [snip]

In response to the widespread protests following the murder of George Floyd last summer, former-President Trump deployed both the D.C. National Guard and thousands of out-of-state National Guards members into Washington, D.C. to police protestors. In doing so, the administration performed an end-run around the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of federal military forces inside the United States for law enforcement purposes unless doing so has been expressly authorized by Congress or the Constitution.

Mentioned in the above:
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-barr-used-loophole-deploy-national-guard-u-s-cities-ncna1236034

Aug. 7, 2020, 8:30 AM UTC
By Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Jim McGovern

The Posse Comitatus Act bans the use of National Guard units for law enforcement only when they are federalized, meaning they are brought under the command and control of the president. When National Guard units are operating in so-called hybrid status — serving federal missions funded with federal dollars but under state governors' command and control — they are not subject to the act and therefore are able to perform law enforcement functions, like searches and arrests.

Congress has limited the activities the National Guard can perform in hybrid status, but it does allow it to perform training exercises in this formulation. Barr twisted this provision to enable the rogue deployment in Washington from 11 states.

[gratuitous]

3. All these demonstrations degenerated into violence when the cops showed up

The string of coincidences is just amazing! Demonstrators marching and chanting, doing just fine, then the cops show up (along with unnamed others) and all h-e-double hockey sticks breaks out.