Trump sued over police charge
Groups accuse US president of violating rights after White House rally crackdown
WASHINGTON: US civil rights groups filed a case suing President Donald Trump after security forces fired pepper balls and smoke bombs to clear peaceful demonstrators outside the White House.
Law enforcement officers forced protesters back before Trump walked to a nearby church for a photo op on Monday that divided the United States amid nationwide protests over police brutality.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups on Thursday accused the president and top officials of violating the constitutional rights of Black Lives Matters campaigners and individual protesters.
“Police conducted a coordinated and unprovoked charge into the crowd of demonstrators and deployed several rounds of chemical irritants, rubber bullets, and sound cannons,” the ACLU said. St John’s Episcopal church, across the street from Lafayette Park, faces the White House and has been the focus of past protests.
The church was defaced with graffiti and damaged in a fire amid riots on Sunday night.
Trump posed with a Bible outside the building after vowing to dispatch thousands of heavily armed soldiers to stop rioting.
Protesters have taken to the streets across the US in recent days to voice anger over the killing of African American George Floyd by Minnesota police.
The president’s “frankly criminal attack on protesters shakes the foundation of our nation’s constitutional order,” said Scott Michelman, ACLU legal director.
Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday defended security forces and said clearing the protesters was not linked to Trump walking to the church.