This year, Black August provides an opportunity to recognize one year of police federalization under the Trump administration — a phenomenon where local and federal law enforcement have collaboratively harassed and detained tens of thousands of people, all with the support of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who extended that relationship beyond the 30-day limit.
Local entrepreneur and now-former Bowser ally Darrell Gaston counted among the policy’s most recent casualties.
“What should have been a ‘hey, you cannot double-park, this is a citation’ resulted in a white officer at Third District planting a white powder substance in my car while having a body-worn camera,” Gaston said. “It made me realize that no matter how many degrees or levels I have behind my name, for the first time I realized being Black in D.C. was not a good thing.”
During a recent rally that took place outside of D.C. Superior Court, Gaston recounted the events of April 1, when he said federal officers and members of the Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) Third District arrested him under false pretenses.
As Gaston, a Ward 8 resident and owner of what was formerly Kitchen Savages, explained, officers surrounded his vehicle that evening while it was double-parked near the intersection of 12th Street and U Street in Northwest. He said that, upon request, he provided identification and proof of insurance. Moments later, as he began to close his door, officers motioned him to keep it open before conducting what he called an illegal search of his vehicle.
The charges related to the white substance in question were later dropped. For the next several weeks, Gaston fought for body camera footage, but not without administrative hurdles, an online campaign, Bowser’s deaf ear, and an epiphany.
“What bothers me is that the mayor looks just like me, and this task force is going into communities who look just like her,” Gaston said during the Aug. 3 rally. “They’re not going into Georgetown. They’re not going into Dupont Circle. They’re not going into white neighborhoods, meaning that they are intentionally, with the mayor’s blessing, hurting Black people.”
Bowser’s communications team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2021, Gaston received a grant from the Bowser administration’s District Neighborhood Prosperity Fund to launch Kitchen Savages, a casual eatery and bar that was once located along Marion Barry Avenue in Anacostia. Last year, as part of the Skyland Town Center’s final stage of development, he opened Savage Breakfast Club.
Both milestones followed Gaston’s stints as an advisory neighborhood commissioner and member of the Bowser administration. Though he acknowledged the resources at his disposal after his arrest, Gaston questioned whether any of the more than 13,000 others who, since last year, have experienced similar would ever get to satisfy their appetite for justice.
“Because of who I am and what I know, I knew how to get a [resolution] to my situation,” Gaston said. “But there are plenty of people who look like me who live in my neighborhoods around Ward 8 and Southeast who don’t get the opportunity to get a resolution to their situation.”
Jeanine Pirro: A Prosecutor Who Took Racist Prosecution to Higher Heights
The Aug. 3 rally in front of D.C. Superior Court took place during Black August, a month dedicated to studying, training and fasting in solidarity with Black political prisoners. The daytime event was also one of several activities the Free DC Project is conducting in advance of Aug. 11– the one-year anniversary of President Donald J. Trump evoking Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act.
Though Trump’s deployment of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops is often credited for what’s described as an overpoliced environment, Loreal Hawk noted that the Bowser administration has long set the stage for the District’s transformation into a surveillance state.
“We had the real-time crime center…that provided the ability for all of these agencies and organizations to come together on Aug. 11 to enact terror,” said Hawk, staff attorney at The Advancement Project, a national nonprofit focused on racial justice issues. “We had MPD stop and frisk thousands of people before it exploded to 85,000 this year. We deserve a D.C. that is free from surveillance, free from policing, and free from the millions of dollars that people are wasting on these things and these troops to be invested in the people.”
On what was a hot, sweltering Monday afternoon, several speakers took to the mic in defiance of Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. They called Pirro the leader of a scheme that keeps the local court lockup list near or above 100 and the D.C. Jail population at least 18% higher than it was before the federal surge.
“They’ve arrested so many people and have attempted to charge and make the charges stick for so many people that they’ve had to expand the time of court,” said Frankie Seabron, program manager of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams. “The United States Attorney’s Office, run by Jeanine Pirro, has been at the center of all of this. Many of the cases Court Watch DC has witnessed have been dismissed. The charges simply don’t stick because people are being arrested for simply existing.”
After the rally, Seabron and Karla Yoder, a Court Watch DC volunteer, delivered a letter to Superior Court of D.C. Chief Judge Milton C. Lee Jr. demanding that the courts reject Pirro’s legal standards in their decision to actualize pretrial detention. Officials received the letter less than a week after Pirro dropped felony charges against David Hearn, a former Olympian canoeist who was arrested in July for his alleged destruction of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.
Trump has since criticized Pirro for failing to follow through on the prosecution.
The coalition of attorneys known as Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) alleges that Pirro acted unethically in the Hearn case and in at least six others—four of which involve arrests made by Trump’s D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.
At the rally, LDAD’s Ellen Hornstein said that, in those four cases, Pirro went to great lengths to levy federal charges without the “legal or factual basis” necessary. By the end of the day on Aug, 3, 98 people faced a judge, according to the Public Defenders Service. A tally conducted by The Informer showed that more than one in four left court without charges filed against them.
Hornstein said there’s a pattern.
“The…reason these cases are so bad that she’s prosecuting is that they’re felonies, and they carry a longer prison term,” said Hornstein, an LDAD volunteer and principal author of the ethics complaint filed against Pirro. “They require an indictment [that] needs to be based on probable cause. And again, those four grand juries did not find probable cause… They didn’t meet [the threshold] here.”
Out of the Mouths of Babes
During the first couple of days of the “One Year of DC’s Occupation” series, activists and community members gathered in different parts of the District in remembrance of Julian Bailey and Nolberto Meza, each of whom died at the hands of U.S. Marshals and U.S. Park Police, respectively.
With legislation that infringes on the District’s local tax-raising authority making its way through the U.S. House, the Free DC Project is also intensifying its boycott of DoorDash, a supporter of Rep. James Comer’s (R-KY) efforts. Other activities center on D.C.-area workers, unhoused residents, and students navigating immigration checkpoints and curfew laws.
For a young person named Mariyel, the events of the past year have shown her that, despite gaps in health care, employment, and housing, District officials continue to expand curfew laws and strengthen coordination between local police and federal law enforcement entities that are unaccountable to local laws.
“We’ve experienced more federal law enforcement filling our neighborhoods and our streets. At the same time, we’ve also witnessed our city treat young people like threats instead of people,” said Mariyel, a rising high school senior and fellow in Harriet’s Wildest Dreams’ Black Girl Freedom Summer Fellowship. “Elected officials look for harsher punishment instead of real solutions.”
As a Black Girl Freedom Summer fellow, Mariyel dedicated much of her time to understanding the inner workings of the local public safety and court ecosystems. During the recent rally, Mariyel told onlookers that she tapped into knowledge about alternative systems of self-reliance intended to keep Black people out of the crosshairs of local and federal police.
These lessons, Mariyel noted, came weeks after Pirro announced a policy targeting parents for their children’s violation of curfew laws. Through it all, Mariyel stands firm in her insistence that young people be heard and considered when it comes to policy affecting their livelihood.
“One mistake I make as a teenager shouldn’t bother me for the rest of my life,” Mariyel said. “It shouldn’t determine whether I get into college, get a job, or build the future I dream about. Young people deserve accountability, but we also deserve grace, support, and the opportunity to learn and grow.”
Sam Plo Kwia Collins Jr.
scollins@washingtoninformer.com
- Sam Plo Kwia Collins Jr. has nearly 20 years of journalism experience, a significant portion of which he gained at The Washington Informer. On any given day, he can be found piecing together a story, conducting… More by Sam Plo Kwia Collins Jr.
Based on reporting by Washington Informer.
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