Organizer Sam Davis testified on behalf of Free DC. Her testimony is featured below:

Testimony of Free DC before the Committee on the Judiciary & Public Safety
Thursday, December 4, 2025
John A. Wilson Building, Room 500
Delivered by Samantha Davis

Chair Pinto and members of the Committee,

• David Warren Childs is the person who an MPD officer shot and killed on November 17 in Deanwood.

• Demetrius Alston is the person who died while in the custody of Metro Transit Police on November 16 in Anacostia.

  Kevin Booker is the person who an MPD officer shot and killed on November 14 near Georgetown.

• Justin Brian Nelson is the name of the man who an HSI agent opened fire on during a traffic stop on November 13 on Minnesota Ave. SE.

• Phillip Brown is the name of the man who an HSI agent opened fire on during a traffic stop on October 17 on Benning Road.

• Hundreds of Black and Brown people, including children, have been stopped, harassed, and arrested by MPD officers together with federal agents in recent months. One judge called one of these incidents, “without a doubt the most illegal search I have seen in my life.”

• And thousands of our immigrant neighbors have been arrested or disappeared in DC just this year.

This is the context in which Free DC submits this testimony. Free DC is the renewed campaign to protect DC Home Rule and win lasting dignity for the people of the District of Columbia. To us, that includes DC’s right to administer a local police department free from federal interference.

Since the start of this year and especially since August, three things have happened:

1. More federal agents are policing DC now than we have seen in a lifetime.

2. Federal agents are openly ignoring the law and violating people’s constitutional rights here and across the country.

3. The Metropolitan Police Department is cooperating with and learning from these federal agents in unprecedented ways.

This cooperation is the most serious threat to public safety that DC currently faces.

This cooperation is happening under the so-called “DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force.” DC cannot control whether Trump creates such a Task Force, but we can control whether or not our local police participate in it. They arguably should not.

Just this week, a federal judge ruled that ICE’s warrantless arrests in DC are unconstitutional. In her ruling, that judge described the people directing ICE’s operations in DC as “ignorant or incompetent, or both.” Those are the people leading the Safe and Beautiful Task Force. 

This Task Force has been changing MPD’s behaviors in our communities — and those changes are serious. Under this Task Force:

• Local police killed three Black men in the span of just four days.

• An HSI agent shot into the car of an unarmed Black man — and an MPD officer was ordered to omit the agent’s shooting in the official report.

• MPD seems to be transferring people to immigration enforcement despite the mayor’s assurances that “immigration enforcement is not what MPD does.” 

• In one incident when bystanders objected, an officer said, "If you have such a problem with us, don't call 911 next time."

• Federal agents and MPD have worked together to target Black youth, stopping, and harassing young people simply for being outside.

• MPD was present at an immigration raid in Georgetown on October 24, in which residents described forced entry, guns pointed at them, and the specific targeting of Latin or Latin-seeming residents. 

These are just some of the abuses MPD has helped federal agents carry out over the last several months. There is not enough time to list all of them.

Chair Pinto, why has it taken you this long to even simply hold a hearing about this? Each day of silence from your office allows more families to be torn apart, and more residents to lose faith that DC’s leaders will defend our rights. We need decisive leadership, not complicity.

Because we aren’t powerless. The tactics used by these federal agents reveal several ways that DC Council can protect DC residents and prove that you truly care about safety.

All of these are within DC Council’s legislative power, and some could be done immediately through emergency legislation, without Congressional or executive approval.

1. Prohibit federal officers working with MPD from covering their faces, and force them to adhere to our existing laws on public identification.

2. Require that all officers from all agencies at the scene of an MPD arrest be listed by name and badge number in an arrest report, along with descriptions of their use of force.

3. Repeal local qualified immunity protections for federal officers making arrests under DC law, as well as any law enforcement officer who invades our schools, community centers, or houses of worship solely to harass and snatch children.

4. Require MPD to file a report on any interactions they have with a minor, including conversations on the street.

5. Conduct an independent investigation of all officer-involved shootings in 2025, and release the names and body camera footage of all officers involved.

6. Close the loophole in the Sanctuary Values Act so it applies to all DC agencies, including MPD.

7. Prohibit MPD from coordinating with federal agents in sensitive locations, like schools, healthcare facilities, and organizations providing aid.

8. Prohibit MPD from contacting federal agents over personal possession of marijuana.

9. Strictly limit any agreements between MPD and federal law enforcement regarding requests for back-up in consensual encounters, traffic stops, and checkpoints on DC streets.

DC’s communities deserve transparency and accountability. We deserve to know the full story of MPD’s coordination with federal law enforcement agencies, including immigration agencies. And we all deserve a safe and thriving community.

Thank you.

Download a PDF of this testimony.

“Any death by police is unacceptable. Three deaths in four days is an abomination,” said Nee Nee Taylor, Executive Director of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams and co-founder of Free DC. “Trump’s Task Force has created dangerous cooperation between local police and federal law enforcement and we cannot allow this to continue. The Task Force needs to be disbanded.”

“For weeks DC community members have been sounding the alarm on MPD’s new level of cooperation with federal agents,” said Frankie Seabron, Program Director with Harriet’s Wildest Dreams. “MPD and federal forces are in lock step with each other in ways we have never seen before, and these teams have now shot at and killed multiple people. DC leaders have so far done absolutely nothing to hold MPD accountable for any of this.”

“Federal agents are committing acts all over the country that are dangerous, unaccountable, and that ignore the rule of law. Local DC police should not be forming working relationships with these agents,” said Alex Dodds, co-founder of Free DC. “On top of this, Congress is trying to roll back basic police accountability measures in DC. That’s wildly irresponsible. This Task Force needs to be disbanded, not given greater license to hurt, endanger, or kill people.”

Free DC and partners will hold a press conference today at 4:00 PM on the House Triangle to discuss this emerging pattern and the two bills before Congress that seek to undo police accountability measures and reinstitute cash bail in DC. Members of the press are invited to join us there.

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Harriet’s Wildest Dreams is a Black-led community defense hub centering all Black lives most at risk for state-sanctioned violence in the Greater Washington area. Our work includes legal empowerment, political and civic education, mass protest, organizing campaigns, and community care that builds alternatives to oppressive systems. Learn more at harrietsdreams.org.

Free DC is the renewed campaign to protect DC Home Rule and win lasting dignity for the people of the District of Columbia.

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on two bills on Wednesday that attack the District of Columbia. These are among more than 40 bills this Congress has introduced that attempt to undo local laws or attack local programs in the nation’s capital. The House has already passed seven such bills; four more are expected to come for a vote before the House before the end of the year.

Attempts to dismantle DC's local governing power are part of the Trump’s administration’s systematic attacks on American communities and democracy.

A coalition of more than 20 national organizations — and growing — is formally opposing these and all attacks against DC. On Monday, November 17, these organizations sent a letter to members of the U.S. House urging them to vote no on both bills about for DC that are up for votes this week, and all attacks on DC’s local autonomy.

Signatories

If your organization would like to sign on to this letter, please fill out this form.

Trump's agents are making violent, racially motivated, and unconstitutional arrests of our loved ones and neighbors. Too often we see Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers alongside these agents doing nothing to stop them or, in many cases, actively assisting them.

MPD should not be assisting federal agents with their attacks on DC residents. This is a dangerous dynamic that deserves urgent attention from our elected leaders. Specifically, the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety is responsible for oversight of MPD and its chair is Councilmember Pinto. We are calling on Councilmember Pinto to hold an urgent hearing on this matter.

Send a letter to Councilmember Pinto using the form below:

Testimony of Free DC before the Committee on Public Works & Operations
Wednesday, October 29, 2025 — John A. Wilson Building, Room 500

Good morning Chair Nadeau and members of the Committee.

Over the last 10 months DC has witnessed and experienced federal agents arresting people in ways that are violent, racially motivated, and that violate Constitutional rights. Local MPD officers often participate in or assist with these actions. I am here today to highlight some of the most troubling examples from the last 10 months.

Let’s start with violations of our rights under the Fourth Amendment, which protects us from unlawful searches and seizures:

• On August 31, an MPD officer stopped a delivery driver, allegedly for possession of marijuana. However, personal possession is legal in DC, and it was found only after the officer illegally searched the driver’s vehicle. That means MPD initiated an illegal traffic stop and unconstitutionally detained the resident. MPD then transferred him to ICE custody.

• On August 26, a federal judge dismissed a weapons charge after what she described as, “without a doubt the most illegal search I've ever seen in my life.” According to news reports, the search and arrest were carried out by a combination of MPD officers and federal agents.

• Also in August, federal agents and MPD worked together to stop people on the street without any legal basis. These stops focused overwhelmingly on young, Black men, and most often resulted in charges like using marijuana in public, fare evasion, and traffic offences.

• In September, MPD helped federal agents apprehend a young man for smoking marijuana in a park. Federal agents performed a subsequent search that found THC wax in a backpack. The federal agents’ reports included no information about how they knew the backpack or the THC wax belonged to the defendant.

• Just this week we found out that on October 17, a DHS agent working alongside MPD shot into the car of an unarmed Black man, allegedly because the agent feared the man was going to hit him with his car. Thankfully, the DHS agent did not kill this person. An MPD officer told a judge that a superior instructed him not to document the shooting in a court record. 

MPD and federal agents have also worked together to violate our rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. These protect us against self-incrimination and guarantee legal counsel. Both local and federal officers must notify any person detained or arrested of these rights, called Miranda warnings, but this is not happening.

• Dozens of bystander videos show MPD officers and federal law enforcement failing to give Miranda warnings when making arrests. Bystander witness statements confirm these failures. 

• On August 30, MPD officers provoked a man sitting on a bench in Malcolm X Park. When the man asserted his rights, MPD officers continued to antagonize him until masked federal agents arrived. Dozens of bystanders recorded the agents grabbing the man and whisking him away. At no point did any of the officers involved advise the man of his Constitutional rights.

MPD and federal agents are often making up perceived threats to justify their violations of our rights. 

• On August 28 at 1610 Park Rd NW, an MPD officer used his cell phone to record and photograph a concerned bystander as she recorded his and other officers actions. He stated that he did so to “protect” himself from any harm she might cause him. 

• On October 3, MPD and federal officers worked together to arrest a man outside DC Bilingual. An MPD officer was recorded saying, "You have such a problem with us, don't call 911 next time.”

• MPD has also collaborated with agents engaged in outright unprovoked and unjustified violence, tackling and slamming residents into the ground, choking residents and even children while detaining them.

DC residents are recording interactions between community members and police, and more violations would likely be happening were it not for these recordings. 

These arrests are violating due process. In many cases, federal agents refused to identify themselves or their agency, refused to provide any information on where they were taking the person, and prevented the individual they were detaining from talking to others who could share what was happening with loved ones or lawyers. We know that individuals are being intentionally disappeared into Trump’s mass deportation machine.

Federal agents' tactics reveal several potential steps DC Council could take to protect DC residents during this time. Those include:

1. Prohibit federal law enforcement officers in DC from obscuring their faces for any operations against civilians with no known violent history. 

2. Require federal law enforcement officers in DC to identify themselves by name, agency, and/or badge number when asked.

3. Prohibit MPD from contacting federal agents over personal possession of marijuana. DC decriminalized marijuana to stop racial profiling, and it has emerged as a key tool powering cooperation between local and federal agencies.

4. Require MPD to file reporting on any interactions they have with a minor, including conversations on the street. These interactions are particularly vulnerable to abuses of power.

5. Strip offending law enforcement of any qualified immunity protections should they invade schools, community centers, and worship centers solely to harass and snatch children for reasons cited above.

6. Require strict limitations on mutual aid agreements between MPD and federal law enforcement with regards to requests for back-up in consensual encounters, traffic stops, and checkpoints on D.C.’s streets.

7. Close the loophole in the Sanctuary Values Act which allows MPD to report people to ICE who are stopped or detained, rather than taken into custody. 

DC communities deserve transparency and accountability on MPD's coordination with federal law enforcement agencies, including immigration agencies. Thank you so much for the opportunity to discuss these points with you all today.

Download a PDF of this testimony.

DC needs elected leaders who will fight federal attacks, not assist them. A number of key seats in DC will be up for election in 2026, including Mayor, Delegate to the U.S. House, and more. As attacks on DC increase, we need leaders in these positions who will be outspoken champions for DC’s rights and the people here.

In recognition of this, Free DC will run a formal candidate endorsements process for DC’s 2026 campaign cycle. This process will include candidate questionnaires that reflect Free DC’s priorities, a voting process among our supporters, and active campaigning for any endorsed candidates.

A dedicated Elections Committee will lead this aspect of our work, and nominations are now open for members of this Committee. This nine-person committee will be responsible for running an endorsements process that is clear, accountable, and participatory. Nominate yourself or someone you know to join Free DC’s inaugural Elections Committee.

Members of the Elections Committee will be responsible for developing our questionnaire, soliciting responses, sharing information with Free DC’s supporter community, facilitating community voting, and coordinating support with endorsed campaigns, as appropriate.

We expect the Committee to undertake work between November 2025 and June 2026. Experience in electoral campaigns is helpful but not required. Stipends are available for this role.

Committee members will be selected by the campaign's four co-founders in consultation with the leadership of Free DC’s Ward Teams and Working Groups. Nominations for this Committee will be open for two weeks, until Tuesday, November 4, 2025. Nominate a leader to the Elections Committee today.

Free DC is a fiscally hosted special project of both Community Change, a 501(c)(3), and Community Change Action, 501(c)(4). Make a contribution to our 501(c)(4) organizing.

Union members: organize your local to be in solidarity with DC communities by passing a union resolution.

Passing a union resolution is an important way to build understanding and consensus among your coworkers that what this administration is doing to DC is wrong and it’s hurting workers across all industries in our region.

In September 2025, AFSCME Local 1808 passed A Resolution Against Collaboration with Federal actions that violate DC Law and Values. In it Local 1808 makes clear that “this body stands in opposition to any continued or expanded, legal or illegal, attempts by the federal government to seize power from the District Government.” We want every union in the DC region to do the same.

Get a template resolution to bring before your union local. Customize this in the way that makes sense for your coworkers. And if you pass a resolution, we want to know! Tell us about it by emailing team@freedcproject.org.

On September 30, leaders from Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Chicago, Memphis, and Portland held a joint virtual news conference to call for an end to the dangerous, unnecessary, and illegal military occupation in their cities.

United in their demand, these leaders—Keya Chatterjee, Executive Director, Free DC; Stacy Davis Gates, Chicago Teacher’s Union; Sandy Chung, Executive Director, ACLU Oregon; Rachael Spriggs, Director of Power Building, Equity Alliance, TN; Maria Oceja, Community Organizer, TN; and Lydia Avila, We Are California, Los Angele—came together to: 

• Emphasize the danger of normalizing armed military presence in civilian communities.

• Underscore the costs to states and families, since Guard members are needed at home for disasters and crises.

• Share personal, state-specific impacts, making the issue real for local media and residents.

• Highlight the wasteful and unlawful nature of these deployments.

“Trump wants all of us to be afraid because it’s the only tool he has. He wants Jimmy Kimmel to be afraid, he wants the U.N. teleprompter operator to be afraid, he wants everyone who knows how to pronounce ‘acetaminophen’ to be afraid, and he wants DC to be afraid. It’s pathetic.


"This Executive Order is designed to spread fear and foremost. That’s something we know authoritarians always do. His actions are not about safety, they are only about him consolidating power.

“The people of DC are joyful, powerful, and we refuse to cower. This is yet another reminder that DC needs full power over our justice system — permanently. We need statehood NOW. Not tomorrow, not in four years. NOW. FREE DC.”

Free DC is the renewed movement to protect DC Home Rule and win lasting dignity for the people of the District of Columbia. Learn more and get involved at FreeDCproject.org.

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Here are some of the key moments from the news conference:

“We’re coming together to say, ‘enough is enough.’ End the deployment of the National Guard. …it’s time for governors to prioritize the wellbeing of their own people over the urge to kiss the ring of Trump and his billionaires. … no city in this country should have an unwanted military presence.” - Keya Chatterjee, Executive Director, Free DC

“This takes the National Guard away from their families. This puts the community at risk of more harm … in the event of an emergency, we won’t have the adequate resources that we need in order to make sure our community is safe.” - Tikeila Rucker, Executive Director, Memphis for All 

“There’s also a cost to the actual morale of troops … it pulls our National Guard members away from their families, their civilian jobs, their schools, their communities – everything within their own lives – to go to DC and pick up trash and cut grass and take pictures with tourists. As a former Guard member myself, I would be devastated to know that I’m being pulled away from my family and my life to work as a political pawn.” - Jermaine Collins, a veteran and former member of the Ohio Army National Guard; Lead National Team Organizer With Common Defense

“Towns in West Virginia have crumbling infrastructure where folks aren’t even reachable by emergency vehicles. We have so many specific needs for the West Virginia National Guard that it is unconscionable to send those resources and to send that manpower out of state for a manufactured crisis. Our governor’s willingness to send our Guard out of state for political theater while rejecting our urgent needs here in the state is unacceptable.” - Dani Parent, Executive Director, West Virginia Citizen Action Group

“Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the nation. Black Mississippians, queer and trans Mississippians, and low-income communities already carry a disproportionate share of the burdens created by poverty, underfunded schools, crumbling infrastructure, and an under-resourced healthcare system. Instead of directing our limited public dollars toward repairing these inequities, Governor Reeves has chosen to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to send our Guard members hundreds of miles away from their families for Trump’s political theater. Our taxpayer dollars should not bankroll Trump’s vanity project in DC. This decision makes Governor Reeves’ priorities clear – protecting the power structures in Washington rather than protecting the people of Mississippi.” -  Lea Campbell, Founder, Mississippi Rising Coalition 

“This occupation is illegal and unjust and absolutely a distraction and a display of authoritarianism and fascism. … Here in New Orleans, we are in the midst of hurricane season and so it is both dangerous and irresponsible for our governor, Jeff Landry, to have sent our National Guard to Washington, DC, at a time such as this when we know quite realistically that storms are both intensifying much more quickly than ever before. They are much more disastrous, and we’ve got to be ready at a moment’s notice.” - Pastor Gregory Manning, Louisiana

Community leaders from DC, TN, MS, OH, LA, and WV answer questions from media at September 25 news conference.

This week the House will vote on four bills aimed at DC’s courts, youth prosecutions, youth sentencing, and high-speed chase laws. Nine more bills against DC are in the works, along with more than 20 budget riders that would undo local laws in some key way.

All of these bills are part of Trump’s ongoing attacks against DC communities. We call on every Democrat in Congress to reject every single one.

Thirty Democrats in the House who have voted against DC in the recent past. They need to hear from DC residents this week that we want them to oppose all of these bills.

Help us call 30 House members this week to make sure they know that voting against DC means they’re siding with Trump. Use our call script and call list linked here, and report back to tell us what you hear.

One important thing we can do in this moment is to make our demand for a free DC visible everywhere.

• Make signs, posters, banners, and flags and put them in your window, on your home, or anywhere else the will be seen.

• Wear Free DC t-shirts, pins, buttons, or patches everywhere you go.

• Take up space because if we don’t take it ourselves, they will take it from us.

Here are some resources you can use to get visible:

• Printable materials

• Posters to print

• Wheatpaste guide

The history of cacerolazos

From France to Latin America to Puerto Rico and now to DC, cacerolazos — hitting pots and pans as a form of protest — has been a powerful symbol of resistance, particularly against fascism. The first documented protests of this style occurred in France in the 1830s, when protesters used of noise to express disapproval, and beat saucepans to make noise against government politicians. This way of showing discontent became popular in 1832, taking place mainly at night and sometimes with the participation of thousands of people.

More than a century later, in 1961, "the nights of the pots" were held in Algeria, in the framework of the Algerian War of Independence. They were thunderous displays of noise in cities of the territory, carried out with homemade pots, whistles, horns and the cry of "French Algeria".

In 2019, Cacerola Girl became a national hero in Puerto Rico as part of the effort to oust Governor Rosselló. In a video gone viral, the young, unidentified woman furiously hits a cacerola while screaming at policemen. When confronted by the officers, Cacerola Girl continues to hit her pot and chants: “Me tienen miedo será. Porque es un mamao. Es un mamao.”

Free DC calls for this continued peaceful protest, until oppression desists.