Out of the 23 students who were arrested during the post-Duke game riot last month, six have seen their cases go to court. All six have had the charges against them dropped.
Not a single university student has faced trial for crimes relating to the riot, while four Prince George’s County Police officers have been suspended in relation to the videotaped beating of a student, largely validating widespread student complaints about police brutality during the early morning hours of March 4.
“It says that there was no basis for the charges in the first place,” said Terrell N. Roberts III, a law partner of an attorney representing three of the six students. “This demonstrates that at least six unlawful arrests occurred. So what’s the basis for the use of force against these students? None.”
County police spokesman Maj. Andrew Ellis said prosecutors dropped two recent cases because the officer who wrote the charging documents didn’t summon the witnessing officer to court. In most situations, the two officers are one and the same, Ellis explained.
But in a riot, witnessing officers can’t leave the formation police use to disperse the crowd, so other officers pick up the paperwork.
County police have refused to provide a comprehensive list of the students arrested that night, but lawyer Chris Griffiths, who is representing about six students and said he was familiar with about 20 of the cases in total, said he believes most of the cases were unlawful arrests.
Griffiths represents sophomore Ben Donat and junior John McKenna, both of whom were cleared of charges earlier this month. He declined to release the names of the other students he is representing, as some of them have not yet gone through the judicial process.
A student filmmaker video-recorded the beating of McKenna by three county police officers. Griffiths released the video, which gathered national media attention and sparked investigations of police behavior by the FBI and the State’s Attorney’s office and caused county police to step up an internal investigation.
Ellis confirmed only four officers have been suspended to date, including Officer Sean McAleavey, who signed the charging documents against McKenna and Donat. The charging documents against McKenna claim he assaulted an officer and a Maryland-National Capital Park Police horse, which the video clearly contradicts. Multiple media outlets have identified Sgt. Anthony Cline as another suspended officer, which was confirmed by the Fraternal Order of Police.
While no officers have been suspended in the past week, the county police investigation isn’t nearing its end.
“It’s going to take months,” Ellis said.
WJLA, Washington’s ABC affiliate, reported last week that the FBI was no longer actively investigating the incident and that no interviews had been conducted. An FBI spokesman said the investigation was continuing.
“The FBI’s investigation of the events in College Park is continuing and ongoing,” Rich Wolf, a spokesman for the FBI’s Baltimore field office. “They sometimes can be pretty time intensive.”
Wolf would not say if any interviews have been conducted, but Griffiths said neither he nor his clients were ever interviewed by the FBI. Ellis said the FBI has been in contact with his department, but he didn’t know if any interviews had been conducted. Sharon Weidenfeld, the private investigator working closely with Griffiths on this case, said she hopes more students who witnessed police brutality will come forward as witnesses to aid her and Griffiths with their investigation. She originally suspected students were worried about university and criminal sanctions but hopes that has changed given the current climate of the riot situation.
“Hopefully, now that the video has been released and now that people see that the public sentiment is with students, we are hoping that more people will feel comfortable coming forward as witnesses,” she said.
Anyone who has information about the riot can contact Weidenfeld by e-mail at sharonpi@aol.com and by phone at 301-873-6969.
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