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8 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE DISTRIcr OF COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW
cled and arrested on 10th Street at the Justice Department for failing to disperse,
despite the fact that the dispersal order was a pretense, since people were not
allowed to leave. 27 On Wednesday, May 5th, 1,200 people were encircled and
arrested in the same way on the U.S. Capitol steps while listening to a Congressman's
speech.28 Of the 14,517 arrests of "Mayweek 1971" there were only 128
convictions after trial on the merits. 29 All the rest were declared "invalid and
unconstitutional. ,,30 Millions of dollars in damages were paid out by the District
of Columbia under court award or settlement. 31
The first of the police practices that was condemned by the federal courts was
the use of the power of arrest, solely to clear the streets, without attempting to
record information that would justify the arrest. The United States Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit stated:
On May 3,1971, when Washington, D.C. was confronted with a threat to
bring the orderly conduct of the Federal government to a standstill, the public
authorities responded by ordering mass arrests. There was no declaration
of martial law. Yet the procedures for requiring that arrests be accompanied
by some indication of the basis therefore ... were terminated. The innocent
as well as the gUilty were in large numbers swept from the streets and
placed in detention facilities . . . .
[P]olice officials laid primary emphasis upon mass arrests as a means of
clearing the streets. The premise of the legal system, that unlawful arrests
can be avoided or remedied by holding individual policemen accountable,
evaporated . . . This lack of accountability was heightened by the fact that
officers appeared on duty without customary name tags or numbered
badges ... 32
The court declared "as a legal principle corollary to the Fourth Amendment's
protection," that "any arrest that was not accompanied by a contemporaneous
Polaroid photograph and field arrest form executed by one who was in fact the
arresting officer" was "presumptively invalid," with such assumption rebuttable
only by the Government showing probable cause in particular cases. 33
In another of its major lawsuits, the ACLU of the National Capital Area
brought a class action suit on behalf of participants, observers, and bystanders at
of May 1971 may be obtained from the ACLU of the National Capital Area (telephone 202-457-
08(0).
27 See ACLU, supra note 26, at 23-27.
28 [d. at 29-34. See also Dellums v. Powellx, 566 F.2d 167 (D.C. Cir. 1977).
29 Sullivan, 478 F.2d, at 942, 956.
30 Sullivan v. Murphy, 380 F. Supp. 867, 868-69 (D.D.C. 1974).
31 See, e.g., Del/ums, 566 F.2d 167.
32 Sullivan, 478 F.2d, at 959, 967.
33 [d. at 967.