The federal takeover of D.C. law enforcement has unleashed confusion and fear among its residents and visitors.
So far, more than 2,300 National Guard members have been deployed to D.C., now carrying firearms. And arrests have surpassed 1,000 since the takeover began.
While the Trump administration touts this move as a way to combat crime, questions about its impact and necessity remain. For journalists covering the federal military presence in D.C., there are several avenues to accessing the information needed to answer these questions.
The D.C. Open Government Coalition recently published a memo and a primer on government transparency, citing statutes like D.C. Code § 5113.06, which requires that D.C. arrest records be made available to the public.
To learn more about how journalists can contextualize the federal takeover and arrest data, the Institute interviewed media attorney Robert Becker, who is a board member at DC OGC.
This interview has been lightly edited for length.
What are some of the barriers to information that journalists covering the federal takeover are facing right now?
Becker: The biggest one is getting the information because it’s all over the place. The arrest books are public by statute under Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) orders in the districts. [Editor’s note: There are seven police districts in Washington, D.C.]
This means that somebody has to go traveling around to each district to get all the arrests. The books are supposed to include 30 days worth of arrests. That’s a lot of work. No single news organization probably has enough reporters here to go traveling all over the city to get the information.
As for what happens after arrests, there are a lot of open questions. One place you can find out is if you go to Superior Court in Courtroom C-10 where the arraignments are held, there should be a lockup list for the day. That will have some of the information.
As for the federal arrests, that information is supposed to be given to MPD to include in the arrest books. Is that happening? I don’t know. Under the general orders, the rule says that when an arrest is made in the District, the law enforcement agency is supposed to tell MPD. The statute clearly says that. So if they’re doing that, then MPD’s arrest books should show what’s out there.
MPD traditionally has been a black hole in terms of FOIA. They don’t like to give out information to anybody about anything. But this isn’t FOIA. You have a right to see this the day it happens without having to make a FOIA request.
Let’s quickly talk about FOIA since FOIA officers have been impacted by the sweeping federal layoffs earlier this year, causing even more delays in open-records requests. What are some ways that journalists can work around these roadblocks?
Becker: I would try and not look at this as a FOIA situation. If you file a FOIA request, they have 20 business days to respond. These arrests that are being made now are public record because they have historically been public. Arrest logs and incident logs have historically been public at the police station. The police blotter is a tool that reporters have used for at least the past 100 years. So you want to avoid the FOIA situation with these arrests, which means somebody’s got to go down to the police districts and get the records.
This may be one of those situations where a bunch of news organizations get together and divide up the labor just to get the data and collect records from all over the city and the court. It may be the most efficient thing for some news organizations to say, we’ll go to the First District. You go to the Second District. Then get the information and cover what’s going on in the courthouse.
The public’s right of access is protected by the First Amendment. You can just go into the clerk’s office and say, “We want to see that case.” If you can get the docket numbers, you can go into court view in the Superior Court and look at the cases there. You can go into Pacer and look at federal cases. So those things you can get that way.
And as for the arrests, the best way to get that information is really to insist that they live by the statute and their rules.
What other advice do you have for journalists when they are being stonewalled in their records requests?
Becker: If they don’t get the records, if they go to the district offices and they’re told they can’t see the records, then they need to very vocally say MPD is violating the law.
Reporters are notoriously bad at advocating for themselves. They don’t want to be part of the story. That’s why when I was with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, I tried to do that for some of them.
But if you’re being denied access to stuff that you are entitled to, it’s time to speak up and say, we tried and we have been refused. That’s the most effective thing you can do.
Many organizations are either reluctant to sue or can’t afford to sue to get information. But if a pattern starts to develop, talk to RCFP about whether they can do something to try and push this along.
If journalists witness an arrest or raid, what should they do if they are met with resistance when reporting?
Becker: They can record what is happening with cameras, with cell phones — the general orders very clearly say that the public can record cops doing their jobs.
As for asking questions, it’s just the usual things: Who, what, when, where, why, and how? What was this person charged with? Which court are they going to be taken to?
This is happening in such an irregular way, so first of all, who is doing the arrest? Do you know? Are they wearing enough insignia to even know who’s making the arrest? That’s a basic issue, and how many is it? Is it a immigration thing? Is it a criminal thing? That’s all valid, perfectly valid questions to ask.
Just ask the questions. You might not get the answers, but there’s no harm in asking the questions.
As this story continues to evolve, how can journalists keep their audiences informed while also avoiding the spread of misinformation?
Becker: One of the reasons I wrote that memo was that in the first week of this fiasco, what I was seeing was numbers coming out of the White House like, “X number of arrests happened today.” This was not saying anything about the fact that nearly half of the arrests were immigration cases.
If you look back at the previous 30 days, are these arrests any better or any worse than MPD does on a daily basis? That begins to tell you whether this is really doing anything. Is it? Where is the crime really happening? The crime isn’t happening on the National Mall. So if the National Guard is on the Mall, then what’s that doing for crime in Anacostia or Northeast?
Keep the context there. Make sure that you indicate that the same day last year, MPD made the same number of arrests. Or more arrests. Or less arrests. And got X number of guns off the street.
This context going back will be difficult, because, as I said, the arrest books only show 30 days. But the perspective of whether this is any better — or worse — than what happened before is crucial. What would have happened if none of these people had come to D.C. to do law enforcement?