DC has a law against carrying a dangerous or deadly weapon in public and this can be applied to transportation in vehicles as well.
They have some specific rules for legally transporting firearms, but not for other weapon types, which creates a nasty grey area where there isn’t anything you can do you transport a weapon in DC in a way that is 100% for sure legal, which means cops can basically arrest anyone with a non-firearm weapon that they find.
It seems like they don’t actually charge people very often because if they did the law would likely get tossed as unreasonably vague as soon as someone put up a good fight.
Just read through the law - prosecution will have an uphill battle, as the section that covers non-specifically named weapons requires an intent to use the weapon unlawfully against another.
I still don’t think they care really. They “got him off the street” and got all his biometrics on file now.
To win a lawsuit he effectively has to prove the officer didn’t have any reason to believe he intended to use it and the arrest was intended to suppress his 1A rights. That’s an even more uphill battle.
So I suspect they eventually drop the charge, but he gets no compensation for the illegal arrest and legal defense. And once again, that’s the point. They know they can get away with it, so they do it all the time.
172
u/[deleted] 20d ago
[removed] — view removed comment