(Corine Gatti, Headline USA) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the city neglected to enforce the defacement ordinance during the Black Lives Matter protests and riots in 2020 while targeting pro-life protesters who used chalk outside an abortion clinic.
During the summer of 2020, thousands of BLM protesters flooded the streets of the District, ransacked sidewalks and vandalized storefronts with paint and chalk. The markings were ubiquitous, an open violation of the defacement ordinance, yet none of the protesters were arrested, Town Hall reported.
However, District police officers arrested two pro-life students in a smaller protest for chalking “Black Pre-Born Lives Matter” on a public sidewalk — they were met by six police cars and officers who warned them against defacing the sidewalk during their rally. The students refused and were arrested despite the message being washable. The event was recorded on video.
Three years later the court cited that BLM protesters “covered construction scaffolding outside the Chamber of Commerce with graffiti, murals, and photographs. The protesters were neither stopped nor arrested for blatant violations of the defacement ordinance,” court documents revealed.
After the arrests, the Frederick Douglass Foundation and Students for Life of America filed a lawsuit against the city and the court agreed Washington, D.C. did “selectively” enforce the anti-graffiti ordinance and found numerous examples of BLM vandals getting away with defacing property with anti-police messages.
“Specifically, selective enforcement of a neutral and facially constitutional law may run afoul of the First Amendment if the government’s prosecutorial choices turn on the content or viewpoint of speech,” the court said which voted 3-0 decision in favor of the pro-life students. “It is well established the government ‘may not regulate speech based on its substantive content or the message it conveys.'”
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said as the case proceeds, her pro-life organization looked forward to learning more about how officials picked winners and losers in their enforcement.
“Free speech rights you’re afraid to use don’t really exist, and we will keep fighting for the rights of our students to stand up for the preborn and their mothers, and against the predatory abortion industry led by Planned Parenthood,” she told Town Hall.
