Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, one of two people appointed by President Barack Obama to chair his "Task Force on 21st Century Policing," is no stranger to litigation and complaints about law enforcement abuses.
Officials with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) – a progressive legal group that won an $8.25 million verdict from the District of Columbia government on behalf of protesters abused by the city police department then headed by Ramsey – blasted the president’s selection in interviews
with the newspaper Telesur.
"If the president's idea of reforming policing practices includes mass false arrests, brutality, and the evisceration of civil rights, then Ramsey's his man. That's Charles Ramsey's legacy in D.C.," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF.
Another PCJF official said Ramsey is synonymous with "militarized and repressive policing."
In announcing Ramsey’s appointment,
the White House said the task force "will examine, among other issues, how to promote effective crime reduction while building public trust."
But on Sept. 27, 2002, the D.C. police, then headed by Ramsey, conducted mass arrests in Washington’s Pershing Park during protests against the World Bank.
Police "did not warn people to disperse before rounding them up" and "some were hogtied and held for more than 24 hours before being released,"
The Washington Post reported.
Ramsey subsequently apologized for the arrests.
Still, controversy followed Ramsey to Philadelphia, where the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in September alleging that police used excessive force in numerous instances to prevent people from filming their activities,
Philadelphia magazine reports.
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