Class Action Alleges D.C. Police Still Have Not Returned Cell Phones Confiscated During Summer 2020 Protests

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A proposed class action alleges the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department has routinely and unlawfully held cell phones seized from arrested individuals, many of whom are never charged with a crime, for months or years past the point when the government might have any legitimate interest in keeping the devices. 

The 28-page suit alleges the D.C. MPD’s apparent practice of withholding cell phones past when it has a legitimate need to do so violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution and constitutes an unlawful conversion of property. 

The lawsuit’s five named plaintiffs say they are among 40 individuals whose cell phones were confiscated by the D.C. MPD when they were detained and arrested amid protests for police reform and racial justice in August 2020 in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. According to the lawsuit, the MPD, who the suit says corralled and confined the demonstrators using a tactic called “kettling,” has refused to return cell phones to all but three of the arrestees, and in some cases has refused to return other property. 

To date, none of the demonstrators kettled and arrested in the late night hours of August 13 and early morning hours of August 14, 2020 have been charged with a crime, the lawsuit states, noting the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to press charges. 

“Yet, since their release over fourteen months ago, MPD has released only three additional individuals’ cell phones—and, in two of the cases, only after holding them for nine months or longer,” the case relays, alleging the D.C. MPD still refuses to release the vast majority of cell phones seized from individuals arrested during last summer’s demonstrations. 

According to the complaint, the D.C. Metro Police do not have in place an effective procedure where non-charged arrestees without a docket number can obtain their cell phones once the government’s legitimate purpose for keeping the devices has expired. As a result of the MPD’s prolonged retention of proposed class members’ cell phones, the individuals were forced to replace the devices, and some incurred contract and data charges even though they did not have use of their phones, the suit says. 

“Some lost access to various data, including photographs, passwords, message histories, and contact information for friends and family,” the case adds.

The lawsuit looks to represent all individuals who were kettled and arrested at or near the intersection of 18th Street, N.W. and Willard Street, N.W. during the late night hours of August 13, 2020 and early morning hours of August 14, 2020, who were subsequently released without being charged with a crime, and whose cell phones and other property the Metropolitan Police Department continues to hold.

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