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Between the hazy donors and the eligibility fights, D.C. Council turkey giveaways haven’t exactly covered the District government in glory. But could the free bird pickups also be hazardous to your health? A lawsuit filed by Marion Barry protege and former State Board of Education member Trayon White today suggests so, with White suing the city over some alleged Thanksgiving season police brutality.
White, who represented Ward 8 on the education board until he resigned last month, says in the complaint that he drove to Barry’s turkey giveaway at Anacostia’s Union Temple Baptist Church last year in a Lincoln Town Car full of donations for the event. As White arrived, though, a truck leaving the church got stuck on W Street SE. (LL was on hand to take a picture.)
Then things got weird, according to the complaint. White, stuck behind the truck, started to unload his trunk. Then, he alleges, the lid of the trunk hit him in the head multiple times—-brought down, White alleges, by a Metropolitan Police Department officer. The complaint doesn’t offer an explanation for the alleged attack, saying only that Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Diane Groomes told White that the officer told her “some very disturbing news.”
“There was nothing that precipitated his need to do that,” says White’s attorney, Lawrence B. Manley. “There was nothing whatsoever. Next time it could be a gun.”
The District’s Office of the Attorney General declined to comment on White’s lawsuit.
Photo by Will Sommer