Civil rights groups file lawsuit against Trump administration after police fire tear gas at White House protest

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and other federal officials over alleged policy brutality towards protesters near the White House.

The groups claim Mr Trump and other federal officials - including Attorney General William Barr - violated the constitutional rights of demonstrators who were removed from a park on Monday to clear a path for the President to visit a nearby church.

Protesters, who had gathered to demonstrate in the wake of George Floyd's deah, were fired at with tear gas and rubber bullets as they were forcefully cleared so that Mr Trump could walk to St. John’s Episcopal church from the White House.

“What happened to our members Monday evening, here in the nation’s capital, was an affront to all our rights,” said April Goggans, Core Organizer of Black Lives Matter D.C, the lead plaintiff in the case.

“The death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers has reignited the rage, pain, and deep sadness our community has suffered for generations.

"We won’t be silenced by tear gas and rubber bullets. Now is our time to be heard.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matters D.C and individual protesters.

Law firm Arnold & Porter, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law also filed the suit, which was submitted to the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Scott Michaelman, the legal director for the ACLU of the District of Columbia, said: “The president’s shameless, unconstitutional, unprovoked and frankly criminal attack on protesters because he disagreed with their views shakes the foundation of our nation’s constitutional order.

“And when the nation’s top law enforcement officer becomes complicit in the tactics of an autocrat, it chills protected speech for all of us.”

Ben Wizner, the director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, added: "Across the country, law enforcement armed with military weaponry are responding with violence to people who are protesting police brutality.

"The First Amendment right to protest is under attack, and we will not let this go unanswered.

"This is the first of many lawsuits the ACLU intends to file across the country in response to police brutality against protesters.”

But Mr Barr has defended officials' decision to forcefully push peaceful protesters back from the White House on Monday evening, saying rioting had gotten out of control over the weekend.

“We decided that we needed more of a buffer to protect the White House,” he said on Thursday.

The clearance of protesters on Monday came shortly after Mr Trump's gave a White House Rose Garden address in which he declared himself as the “president of law and order”.

The US President has come under fierce scrutiny over the incident, with critics accusing him of using the church as "prop" after he posed with a bible for photos at St John's following his walk from the White House.

Mr Trump on Wednesday said he did not ask for protesters to be moved before he journeyed to the partially-burned church.

"When I went, I didn’t say ‘Oh, move them out.’ I didn’t know who was there," he told Fox News.

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