Not only has MPD and its half billion budget not stopped community violence it has caused huge amounts of harm.

DC police have hurt, assaulted, harassed or killed huge numbers of people. Often they claim this is somehow necessary to protect us from gun violence and other violent crime, yet those who are committing the most violence, including and especially gun violence, are usually the police.

To find out more about efforts to stop this harm and to support that work, follow these links to the No More Stop & Frisk campaign, the #PoliceFreeSchoolsDC campaign, the Decrim Poverty DC campaign, and the DC Defund MPD coalition

> DC police have killed at least 21 people since 2016 (this only includes DC MPD officers not other departments and agencies in the region).

> MPD officers killed 11 people between 2020-2023.

> In February 2023 DC Police shot Steven Shaw while he was sitting in his car with his mother, after mistaking him for a person they were searching for.

> MPD officers Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky were found guilty of second degree murder, obstruction, and conspiracy after killing Karon Hylton-Brown in 2020 then trying to cover up the murder.

> DC Police Sgt. Enis Jevric was charged with murder in 2023 for the killing of An’Twan Gilmore. An’Twan was sleeping in his car and was shot by Jevric seconds after waking up.

> In 2021 DC Police officers intentionally fired a gun at a person 20 times, 18 times at Black men, killing five of those men.

> DC Police lieutenant Shane Lamond was indicted for providing assistance to Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio ahead of January 6th. Lamond was in close communication with Tarrio, his aid included advising him to use encrypted texts and tipping Tarrio off about an impending arrest.

> Within a year, two separate DC police officers were arrested and charged with child sexual abuse in two separate incidents. Charles Johnson II was charged with abusing an 11-year-old girl for more than a year. Veteran officer Lucius Kearney was charged with abusing a 15-year-old student.

> DC police kept a blacklist of reporters and residents whose requests for public information were automatically delayed or denied

> The MPD kept officers who were found responsible for violent misconduct from being fired (including one officer who talked about killing his wife and kids and using pigs to get rid of the body)

> In June 2022 A DC police officer violently assaulted a man and put his knee on his neck to restrain him.

> MPD’s Intelligence Bureau has been closely surveilling Black Lives Matter DC and other Black-led organizations for years while ignoring far-right groups.

> Two MPD officers were charged with reckless driving after crashing their police cruisers into each other during a drag race in the middle of a residential neighborhood

> A DC police officer was caught wearing a symbol associated with the KKK. MPD and the mayor refused to reveal if he had a history of past complaints let alone fire him.

> MPD admitted that it deleted body-worn camera footage that was “critical to a major civil rights lawsuit against a D.C. police officer.

> DC police worked with the Oath Keepers and Project Veritas when investigating  people who protested during Donald Trump’s 2016 inauguration.

> After first lying about their involvement MPD admitted to using tear gas on protesters who were forcefully cleared from Lafayette Square Park ahead of an appearance by Donald Trump on June 1, 2020

> A DC police lieutenant was suspended after his communications with the Proud Boys were exposed including his communications with Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the group’s former chairman.

> Lieutenant Lamond had previously offered to “collaborate” with the white nationalist group Patriot Front while talking to who he thought was a top adviser to Patriot Front’s leader Thomas Rousseau.

> MPD has caused numerous deadly dirt bike crashes. MPD officers who “target black bikers with deadly force are routinely given promotions and pay increases which inspires other officers to target black bikers with their cruisers with impunity.”

> MPD officer Mark L. Clark was accused of using illegal chokeholds multiple times. A federal grand jury charged him with “violating the civil rights of two people in separate July 2018 incidents involving illegal chokeholds.”

> MPD officer Robert Anderson was arrested and charged with five counts of simple assault for assaulting his co-workers.

> A Washington Post investigation found that MPD consistently invaded people’s homes and seized their property with no evidence or probable cause, almost always in Black communities.

> A Washington Post investigation found that the D.C. government spent millions of dollars settling dozens of police misconduct lawsuits — lawsuits that accused officers of numerous assaults including a man who was beaten on his front lawn resulting in injuries so severe he was hospitalized.

> A 16-year MPD veteran sued the DC Police Department after supervisors retaliated against her for raising concerns around officers illegally targeting Black men for arrests.

> A nine-year-old child was forcibly handcuffed for “talking back” to a MPD officer, making the terrified boy cry and wet himself.

> Three young black boys were stopped and frisked by seven MPD officers. The witness who recorded the incident: “They were so little, and their bodies are just so small, and their pockets are being dug into. Their little legs are being touched.”

> When a local official tried to access the body camera footage of the stop-and-frisks of the children the MPD first charged her more than $5,000 then told her request was being denied entirely.

> D.C.’s special gun recovery and narcotics units exclusively used force on Black people. despite making up 46% of DC’s population Black people were the subject of 100% of “use-of-force incidents.” 

> DC Police admitted that they had underreported the number of stop-and-frisks MPD officers conducted for years.

> DC police officers escorted far-right protesters to Harry’s bar and fist bumped Proud Boys.

> In 2021 1,042 officers reported using force and 827 complaints were filed about those uses of force.