Sporkin Report Details Missing Records Related To World Bank Arrests

Ian Urbina of the NYTimes has this excellent and sobering story on a recent District of Columbia internal investigation concerning the DC Police Department’s mass illegal arrests of protesters and innocent bystanders during the 2002 IMF/World Bank Meetings.  The investigation, into missing records, was conducted by former federal judge Stanley Sporkin. Sporkin’s investigative report calls for further inquiry and suggests that pertinent documents were intentionally destroyed by city officials. The Times story also discusses the city’s problems litigating the case in front of U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who threatened the DC AG’s Office with sanctions before the case was settled. Particularly disturbing is this passage from Urbina’s article:

“In November, the city agreed to pay $450,000 to eight war protesters to settle a civil lawsuit in which they accused F.B.I. agents of detaining them in a Washington parking garage and interrogating them on videotape about their political and religious beliefs.

For years, the city police and the F.B.I. said that the interrogation had never happened and that they had no records of such an incident. The police also said no F.B.I. agents had been present when officers arrested the protesters for trespassing.

But as lawyers for the protesters were preparing for the trial, which was scheduled to begin in federal court Nov. 30, they unearthed police logs that confirmed the role of a secret F.B.I. intelligence unit in the incident.” (Emphasis added).

There they go again. This is unfortunately part of a longstanding pattern by elements within FBI headquarters of stonewalling and/or making misleading statements concerning the existence vel non of records sought by citizens and litigants.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the FBI street agent is, generally speaking, the crown jewel of federal law enforcement. He/she is often ill-served, however, by certain rogue elements within headquarters leadership.

The illegal mass arrests occurred on former Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey’s watch.