D.C. police testify about 2002 Pershing Park arrests / destruction or loss of evidence

Former D.C. police chief Charles H. Ramsey and other top officials have been summoned to federal court this week to account for the loss of key evidence in a case of possible police misconduct more than eight years after the unfounded arrests of hundreds of protesters roiled the city.

Fifteen top police officials and lawyers have paraded through the courthouse since Tuesday in hearings that could lead to a criminal probe. They have tried to explain under oath how the city's preeminent law enforcement agency could mishandle evidence of its own conduct.
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Lawsuits related to the arrests have cost taxpayers more than $10 million in settlements of complaints that police officers, without warning, swept up demonstrators, commuters and tourists three blocks from the White House, leaving some hogtied wrist-to-ankle or detained for up to a day.

The most authoritative police evidence - video surveillance tapes, radio recordings and a master log of police command actions of the day's chaotic events at Pershing Park - disappeared or were mysteriously edited, according to evidence uncovered in civil suits.

http://www.justiceonline.org/site/News2?id=5538