Police Union Chief Calls For Federal Criminal Investigation in World Bank Protest Case

D.C. Police Union Chief Kristopher Baumann joined the call from city council members for a criminal investigation into the destruction of evidence in the World bank/IMF protest case where hundreds of people were arrested without probable cause and many hogtied by police. The New York Times has also run an article on the recent report by former Judge Stan Sporkin finding that the evidence was presumptively destroyed on purpose.

As lead counsel in one of the two cases (with my colleague Daniel Schwartz of Bryan Cave), I am limited in what I can say on the case.

However, the City Paper reports that Baumann stated “[t]here needs to be an independent prosecutor set up. There’s a host of potential criminal charges ranging from perjury to obstruction of justice. That’s just what we know….We don’t know that much. What we do know is terrible. What goes on past that is a question obviously someone needs to come in and tear this all apart.”

There is a hearing scheduled for December 17th before Judge Sullivan who previously stated that he is considering a criminal referral in the case.

Here is the City Paper story, here.