Opinion ID: 489887
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hancock

Text: 4 One morning in November, 1977, Hancock parked his car on the street in front of his home and proceeded to check the antifreeze. 12 He left the car briefly to fetch a tool, then returned to find appellee Sonya Proctor, an officer of the Metropolitan Police Department, who approached him, requested his driver's license and vehicle registration, and announced that he would be cited for leaving the vehicle unattended with the motor running. 13 As Proctor was handing the citation to Hancock through the car window she dropped it in the street, then demanded, in a loud, angry voice, 14 that appellant retrieve it. The ticket had by then blown away, and Hancock refused to chase it. 15 Proctor repeated her order, stepping back from the car and unbuttoning the holster of her gun; 16 when Hancock again declined she ordered him out of the car, patted him down, and placed him under arrest. 17 Hancock was taken to a police station and charged with leaving a motor-running vehicle unattended, depositing trash--the citation--in the street, and disorderly conduct. 18 He forfeited collateral on the first charge but stated that he wished to stand trial on the latter two. 19 5 Three days after the incident, Hancock and his wife filed with the Metropolitan Police Department a citizens' complaint against Proctor. A week later, Hancock was formally charged with depositing trash. 20 At a pretrial conference on the trash charge, appellee Howard B. Horowitz, an Assistant Corporation Counsel assigned to the Law Enforcement Section of the District of Columbia Corporation Counsel's Office, told Hancock and his attorney that the pending citizens' complaint presented a problem. 21 Horowitz stated that he needed to speak to Proctor before he could decide whether to prosecute the trash charge. 22 A few days later, Horowitz informed Hancock's attorney that Proctor was angry about the citizens' complaint, and that the charge would not be dismissed. 23 Hancock then learned that the Police Department was investigating his complaint, 24 and shortly thereafter the charge of disorderly conduct, which had not been pressed after the arrest, was added to the trash charge. 25 6 Hancock alleges that the trash charge would have been dropped, and the disorderly conduct charge would never have been reinstated, were it not for the lodging of his citizens' complaint. 26 He asserts that Horowitz pressed this retaliatory prosecution pursuant to policies and/or directives of [appellee Frank] Miller who was then and is Chief of the Law Enforcement Section of the Corporation Counsel. 27 Hancock's further demands to supervisory officials and threats of suit for declaratory or injunctive relief 28 resulted eventually in dismissal of all charges against him. 29