As D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) prepares to leave office, mayoral candidates, residents and everyone else in between are discussing how best to navigate an environment created, in part, by a mayoral order that Bowser issued last fall to maintain local-federal law enforcement collaboration.
Jamari Jackson said he felt the real-life implications of such a policy on the evening of April 19, when, as he was walking from a pickup game of baseball, local and federal officers surrounded him, demanded identification and tried to search him.
“You always have that slight feeling that when you….may have an interaction with them,” said Jackson, 27. “After seeing them come down Allison Street NW while I was walking up, my intuition went off. I’m not going to say I knew, but it was….one of those weird interactions.”
On Allison Street NW, Jackson had his phone in his hand, thinking about which photos from the baseball game to post online. As he recounted, that’s when he saw two unmarked vehicles and one police squad car drive up the one-way street and make a U-turn.
Soon after, as he walked to Kansas Avenue NW near Eighth Street NW, Jackson saw the three cars driving toward him. In a video that’s now gone viral, Jackson is walking on the 4400 block of Kansas Avenue NW near E.L. Haynes Public Charter School with Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officer Anthony Delborrell and another local officer not too far behind him, and at least three federal agents walking to his right after hopping out of an unmarked vehicle.
In the video, Delborrel, an officer who’s accumulated complaints over the years, asks Jackson to stop as he follows him. Jackson, who continues to look behind as he walks, asks if he’s being detained, to which Delborrell responds in the affirmative.
Jackson then asks why Delborrel stopped him. Delborrel, who’s holding Jackson by his arm, told him that he is suspected of having a weapon. Soon after, when Jackson refuses to give his name, Delborrel lets him go, but not before telling him that he will be identified as “John Doe” in the police report.
Since then, Jackson has gelled plans together to help others navigate police interactions. He’s also exploring various options to hold MPD accountable, with the video serving as a tool in accomplishing that goal.
On Tuesday, an MPD official confirmed that the Office of Police Complaints is investigating the police stop.
“I’m not the one to be… holding up my camera and looking for that viral moment,” Jackson said. “Had I not already had my phone out physically in my hand, I probably wouldn’t have pulled it out because they were suspecting I had a weapon.”
As Jackson would later tell The Informer, he knew the importance of keeping a cool demeanor during the interaction.
“There were seven of them, and they felt like they could do anything they wanted,” he said. “I was in a situation where I knew that I had to conduct myself a certain way, and I had a million things going on in my head. I just had to regulate [myself] and just get this over with.”
In Advance of Next Year, Advocates Press for Transparency in Police Selection Process
Last year, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith announced her resignation. Bowser selected Jeffery Carroll, an MPD official with alleged ties to white supremacists, as interim chief.
A Bowser administration official confirmed that Carroll will remain as interim chief throughout the remainder of 2025. For months, Carroll has been at the helm of a police department that has been on the scene of, and even obscured information about, shootings and use-of-force incidents involving federal officers.
For Clinique Chapman, MPD leadership must be accountable to District residents, especially in the age of local-federal law enforcement collusion.
“We need them to understand the current climate and the needs of their residents to really put residents first and not the federal authorities,” said Chapman, executive director of DC Justice Lab. “We need someone that will not only stand up to the mayor but to the federal agencies as well to let them know that D.C. residents come first and their safety and security comes first.”
Earlier this year, shortly after Carroll’s appointment as interim police chief, DC Justice Lab released a set of metrics they said MPD leadership should improve. Those metrics include: reduction of unnecessary interactions with residents; increasing of cost-effective alternatives, and investments in community-based responses to 911 calls.
Advocates also said they desire a reduction of racial disparities in arrests, strengthening of external oversight via expansion of civilian accountability options; and an increase in transparency and community stewardship of policing policies and priorities.
For Chapman, such overtures, particularly those involving transparency, begin in the future mayor and council’s selection of a police chief.
“Selecting a new chief really would mean that public input needs to happen at the very beginning to not exacerbate the already eroding public trust that has happened,” Chapman said. “The residents deserve a process that’s grounded in community-defined expectations, not just, this kind of political fear that we’ve been seeing in every aspect over the last few months in the city.”
Retired MPD officer Ron Hampton said prior experience has shown him the power of community involvement during the police chief selection process.
“I did it for Mayor Marion Barry,” said Hampton, who has decades of experience in community policing, “What we did was we reduced it down to a couple of candidates, and then we recommended those candidates to him, and then he made the final selection.”
Decades later, amid clashes between the D.C. Council and Bowser about how to hold federal law enforcement accountable, Hampton said that President Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House demands a response from city leadership that shows deference to residents.
“Municipal policing is different from what ICE and all of them are doing, but the impact of it is hitting our community and people are paying attention to it,” Hampton said. “MPD and all the other local police departments are going to have to contend with the overflow and the impact of what’s happening at the federal level.”
In recent years, Hampton has weighed in on matters of police accountability and transparency as a member of D.C. Police Reform Commission. More recently, he’s been collaborating with community members, and former and current law enforcement and corrections personnel in the design of a “a new kind of criminal justice system.”
As the District commences celebrations around the nation’s 250 years of existence, Hampton said that his efforts to effect change come in recognition of structures that continue to influence policing to the detriment of Black Washingtonians.
“Policing in this country for Black folk comes out of the slavery era, so it has been an oppressive situation for our communities and the people who lived it,” Hampton told The Informer. “There’s been some…tinkling around the edges of the institutions and systems that have to do with criminal justice, but has true reform happened?”
While other groups fight to create independent, parallel-existing public safety systems, Hampton has placed his faith in a system in which he’s organized for reform for decades. “The criminal justice institution in this country is very slow to change,” Hampton said, “so if you want something to work, you got to be willing and down for the long haul.”
Jackson Questions District’s Response to Crime
Jackson said MPD and federal law enforcement officials stopped him on Kansas Avenue NW just months after a similar interaction with Department of Treasury personnel.
This incident also took place two days before the D.C. Council approved permanent youth curfew legislation on the first reading, and delayed a vote on emergency legislation that would extend Bowser’s emergency youth curfew powers through the summer.
The debate about the youth curfew continues amid a string of homicides along Georgia Avenue NW, Kenyan Street NW, Pitts Place SE, and Wheeler Road SE. More recently, MPD responded to the scene of two separate shootings that affected a total of five people, including a 5-year-old child.
Jackson counts among those who say they don’t see public safety and human rights as mutually exclusive concepts. More than a week after his police encounter, he’s demanding that city officials truly assess whether policing alone can lower crime.
“If you look at the climate this past year, there’s a lot of root conditions…that have probably sparked this,” Jackson told The Informer. “I’m not saying that we as a city are perfect either, but crime is a byproduct. So when you look at issues like this, [people want to] increase police presence, but let’s look at what they’re actually doing. Crime and violence, that needs to be stopped, but what are they actually doing to do that?”
