Commissioner Ramsey's truthiness problem

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Commissioner Ramsey's truthiness problem

POSTED: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 8:53 PM

Don't know if you saw this little thingamajigger on Phawker, (which itself links to this thing from Washington City Paper), but our Police Commissioner may have a truthiness problem from his days down in DC. From the WashCP:

An affidavit filed today in U.S. District Court raises questions as to whether former D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey may have committed perjury in his sworn testimony about the Pershing Park fiasco. Ramsey had repeatedly stated in depositions that he had not ordered the mass arrest of approximately 400 people during the Sept. 27, 2002, World Bank/IMF protests.

Yet the affidavit, by Det. Paul Hustler, a 22-year D.C. Police veteran, maintains that Ramsey indeed ordered the arrests.

Hustler's affidavit, taken Nov. 16, [PDF] is just the latest shock in a pair of Pershing Park class-action civil suits in U.S. District Court. In recent months, the case has been dogged by allegations of massive discovery violations. Judge Emmet Sullivan has called for an outside investigation into how basic evidence in the cases had gone missing.

We took a quick read through Hustler‘s testimony, and indeed, if he’s telling the truth, it might not bode well for Chief Ramsey. So, being the judicious reporters that we are, we (technically, an intern) placed a call to Ramsey’s public affairs office, to ask if he had any thoughts on Hustler’s statement. Here's what the lady who answered the phone told us, in whole:

"We're not willing to comment, and neither is he!” Click.

So, um, there you go.


Woodward
Posted 2009-11-19 18:39:20
great reporting
Posted by Jeffrey Billman @ 8:53 PM  Permalink | Post a comment
Comments  (0)


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