{"id":2003037,"date":"2023-08-16T20:08:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T00:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dc-officials-selectively-arrested-pro-lifers-while-ignoring-2020-blm-activists-appeals-court\/"},"modified":"2023-08-16T20:09:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T00:09:43","slug":"dc-officials-selectively-arrested-pro-lifers-while-ignoring-2020-blm-activists-appeals-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dc-officials-selectively-arrested-pro-lifers-while-ignoring-2020-blm-activists-appeals-court\/","title":{"rendered":"DC officials arrested pro-lifers but ignored 2020 BLM activists, says appeals court."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdc-officials-selectively-arrested-pro-lifers-while-ignoring-2020-blm-activists-appeals-court%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2003037&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>A Victory for Pro-Life Activists:\u2063 Court \u200cRules D.C. Officials Can Be Sued for Selective Enforcement<\/h2>\n<p>In a significant ruling, a\u200d federal \u200bappeals court has determined that officials in the \u200bWashington D.C. \u200clocal government\u2063 can be held\u2064 accountable \u2063for selectively\u200b enforcing a property defacement statute. This\u2063 decision\u200d comes after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/americans-remember-the-48th-annual-march-for-life\/\" title=\"Americans remember the 48th annual March for Life\">pro-life activists<\/a> \u2064were arrested for writing a pro-life message\u2064 in chalk \u2063on \u2063a city sidewalk, while Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists faced no consequences for their more\u2062 permanent actions.<\/p>\n<p>During the summer of 2020, \u200dD.C. police arrested two pro-life activists for chalking &#8220;Black Pre-Born Lives Matter&#8221; on a public\u200b sidewalk.\u200c Meanwhile, BLM activists\u200b were freely painting their own messages throughout the city without facing\u2064 similar enforcement\u200b measures.<\/p>\n<p>The Frederick Douglass Foundation and\u2064 Students for Life took legal action against the city, filing a lawsuit\u2062 in the D.C. Federal court in November 2020. \u200cThey argued that while the defacement statute \u2063is meant to \u200bprevent vandalism, the city&#8217;s enforcement of the law was biased. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sen-hawley-says-biden-abortion-policies-are-an-insult\/\" title=\"Sen. Hawley says Biden abortion policies are an insult\">pro-life groups<\/a> were punished\u200d for using easily removable washable chalk, while BLM activists were allowed \u200bto use permanent paint. The\u200b plaintiffs claimed that this selective enforcement violated their \u200cFirst\u2063 Amendment and Fifth Amendment\u2064 rights.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Related Stories<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/nyc-agrees-to-13-million-settlement-with-blm-demonstrators-5412171\">NYC Agrees to $13 \u2063Million Settlement With\u200c BLM Demonstrators<\/a> &#8211; 7\/20\/2023<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/world\/calgary-blm-leader-charged-with-hate-crime-5333494\">Calgary BLM Leader Charged With Hate Crime<\/a> &#8211; 6\/14\/2023<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>District Judge James Boasberg, appointed by \u2064President Barack\u2064 Obama, initially dismissed the lawsuit \u2063in \u200cSeptember 2021. However, the pro-life organizations appealed the decision. On Tuesday, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the\u2064 District of Columbia Circuit \u2064unanimously decided to partially reverse the lower court&#8217;s ruling. This means that\u2064 the plaintiffs can now proceed with their First Amendment claims in the lower \u200bcourt.<\/p>\n<p>Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, \u200bappointed by President Donald Trump, emphasized \u200dthe importance of\u2063 the First Amendment in her opinion. She stated, &#8220;The First Amendment prohibits discrimination on\u200d the basis of viewpoint irrespective of the government&#8217;s motive.&#8221; Judge\u200d Rao concluded \u2063that the \u2064Foundation had presented a\u200c plausible case \u200bthat the District had discriminated based on viewpoint \u200din its\u2064 selective enforcement of \u2062the \u2064defacement ordinance.<\/p>\n<h2>DC &#8216;All But Abandoned&#8217; Enforcement on BLM: Judge<\/h2>\n<p>Judge Rao highlighted the actions\u2063 of D.C.\u2062 Mayor Muriel \u200dBowser, who openly supported BLM\u2063 activists \u200dand\u2064 ordered \u200bcity workers\u2063 to paint &#8220;Black Lives Matter&#8221; in\u2063 yellow\u2063 along a city street. BLM activists later added &#8220;Defund the Police&#8221; \u200din yellow paint on the \u200csame street, connecting\u200c it to the &#8220;Black \u2063Lives Matter&#8221; street mural with an equals sign.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Police officers watched as\u2063 the alteration took place and did nothing\u200b to stop it. Although the \u200cBlack Lives Matter advocates did not seek a permit or otherwise receive consent, they\u200d were neither\u200c arrested\u2062 nor charged\u2062 under the defacement ordinance,&#8221; Judge Rao wrote.\u2062 She further\u2064 noted\u2063 that the District allowed the addition to \u200bremain in\u200b place for months before eventually removing it\u200c in mid-August.<\/p>\n<p>BLM messages appeared in various\u200b other locations \u200cthroughout the \u200dcity, including streets, sidewalks,\u200c and store fronts. One \u2064instance involved a BLM message being graffitied onto scaffolding outside a Chamber \u2064of Commerce building.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The District\u200d all but abandoned \u2063enforcement of the defacement ordinance during the Black Lives Matter protests, creating a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dc-officials-selectively-arrested-pro-lifers-while-ignoring-2020-blm-activists-appeals-court\/\" title=\"DC officials arrested pro-lifers but ignored 2020 BLM activists, says appeals court.\">de\u2063 facto categorical\u2063 exemption<\/a> for\u2064 individuals who marked &#8216;Black \u2063Lives \u200bMatter&#8217; messages on public and \u200cprivate property,&#8221; Judge Rao explained.<\/p>\n<p>The pro-life activists had actually sought permission to display \u200btheir messages \u2062throughout\u2062 the \u200dcity. They reached out to Ms. Bowser&#8217;s office, but received \u2062no response. They also consulted a\u2063 police officer about their plans to use chalk, and he informed them that they could proceed\u200d because he believed Mayor Bowser had opened up the \u2063streets for political markings. Despite seeking \u200dpermission, not \u2063a single permit was sought or granted,\u200c and no\u2063 one was punished\u2064 for violating the defacement ordinance with BLM messages.<\/p>\n<p>In their attempt to dismiss the lawsuit, attorneys for the District of Columbia argued that the plaintiffs had no right to deface public property and that the District&#8217;s application \u200bof \u200cthe Defacement Ordinance did \u200bnot violate\u200d their rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal appeals court ruled that Washington D.C. officials may face lawsuits for unfairly applying a property defacement law. They targeted pro-life activists who used chalk to write a pro-life message on a sidewalk, while overlooking more lasting actions by Black Lives Matter activists. This occurred during the summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1759,"featured_media":2003038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2003037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1759"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2003037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2003038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2003037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2003037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2003037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}