Opinion ID: 2323921
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Crossing the Police Line

Text: The police line was established solely to effectuate the revocation of the demonstration permit and prevent the demonstrators from continuing to engage in their public protest in front of the White House. Consequently, as in Bloch, the government's failure to justify the restriction on appellants' expressive activity also requires us to reverse their CPL convictions. [16] It is well to add that the government also failed to present sufficient evidence at trial to prove that appellants committed the charged CPL violationseven assuming the evidence together with the stipulation sufficed to show that appellants actually did cross a police line (there being no testimony that any of them did so). In pertinent part, the police line regulations in 24 DCMR § 2100 provide as follows: 2100.1. When fires, accidents, wrecks, explosions, parades, or other occasions cause or may cause persons to collect on the public streets, alleys, highways, or parkings, the Chief of Police, an inspector or captain of the police, or an officer acting for him or her may establish an area or zone that he or she considers necessary for the purpose of affording a clearing for the following: (a) The operation of firemen or policemen; (b) The passage of a parade; (c) The movement of traffic; (d) The exclusion of the public from the vicinity of a riot, disorderly gathering, accident, wreck, explosion or other emergency; and (e) The protection of persons and property.    2100.3. No person shall enter the emergency area or zone unless duly authorized by the person in command of the emergency occasion[.] As the court stated in Washington Mobilization Committee v. Cullinane, [17] upholding the constitutionality of the police line regulation against a vagueness and overbreadth challenge, Under the [police line] regulation a citizen must not cross a police line without authority and he must obey any police order necessary to effectuate any of the five specified purposes of the line. If the location of the line is clearly indicated and if adequate notice is given, which we interpret to be requirements implicit in the regulation, its application will not trap innocent persons. [18] None of the five specified purposes of a proper police line was shown to exist at trial in this case. But even assuming the government did not need to make such a showinga question we need not resolveit presented no evidence that the location of the line was clearly indicated to appellants when they (allegedly) crossed it, or that appellants received adequate notice not to cross. There was no testimony as to when, where, or under what circumstances, any of the appellants crossed the police line. That Lieutenant Beck may have given verbal warnings to the demonstrators as a whole not to cross over the fencing falls well short of the necessary proof that appellants received and heard those warnings or otherwise were on notice not to cross.