Holding the government accountable for military helicopter attack
Friend –

Today, we sued <[link removed]> to hold the U.S. government accountable for using a low-flying military helicopter to attack racial justice protestors, including our client Dzhuliya Dashtamirova, back in 2020 in downtown D.C.

On June 1, 2020, demonstrators gathered to protest the gross, systemic injustices perpetrated by law enforcement against Black people in the United States, exemplified by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Ms. Dashtamirova traveled from Baltimore to join other racial justice demonstrators in the District.

Just hours after federal officers brutally attacked civil rights demonstrators across the street from the White House, the D.C. National Guard, without warning or provocation, hovered military helicopters as low as 45 feet above racial justice protesters, including Ms. Dashtamirova, at Gallery Place and again at Judiciary Square. Demonstrators crouched and protected their heads as gale-force winds hurled dirt and broken glass at them, tore signs from buildings, and ripped branches off trees.

"My eyes and skin stung from debris. I couldn't hear anything over the extremely powerful winds," said Dashtamirova. "For weeks afterward, I had horrible migraines and lost sleep. I kept trying to figure out why the military attacked us, and I kept worrying that it would happen again."

The U.S. military has used this low-flying helicopter maneuver in international conflicts as an intimidation and dispersal tactic that causes immediate harm and threatens greater force to come. Ms. Dashtamirova filed an administrative complaint <[link removed]> with the National Guard in 2020, which the Guard failed to resolve. Having waited over two years for a resolution from the National Guard, Ms. Dashtamirova has now gone to court to seek accountability for the 2020 attack and its aftermath.

In addition to monetary damages, Ms. Dashtamirova's lawsuit seeks to set a precedent that protects other demonstrators from being attacked by low-flying military helicopters when they are exercising their First Amendment rights.

Thanks for sticking with us,

ACLU of the District of Columbia


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