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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Footage uncovered from decade-old protests near campus

IMF
The annual World Bank-International Monetary Fund meetings typically cause minor disturbances, but in 2002 it became the site of mass demonstrations leading to hundreds of arrests. Hatchet File Photo

Photos and video frames have surfaced documenting the city’s response to mass protests that saw hundreds of arrests on the edge of the Foggy Bottom Campus in September 2002.

The footage of a weekend of demonstrations against the annual World Bank-International Monetary Fund meetings that year has become evidence in a lawsuit against the District and the Metropolitan Police Department, who arrested about 400 protesters – including a handful of former students who are still battling the case, according to The Washington Post.

The former students, whose case a decade later is still in legal limbo, are looking to change how police respond to large-scale demonstrations, according to The Post. The discovery of new video frames follow claims by city officials that documentation beyond limited surveillance recordings did not exist. Some of the plaintiffs are former Hatchet employees.

“Lawyers for the plaintiffs hope the photographs can bolster their argument that police and government officials have a pattern of making dishonest and contradictory statements about evidence in the case,” according to The Post.

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