A student who was arrested while praying on campus in 2018 is suing the University for enabling a “negligent, discriminatory and intentional act,” allegedly having been assaulted by police during the arrest.
In a five-page complaint filed in the D.C. Superior Court Thursday, Juanita Abii, a fourth-year graduate student, alleges the University harmed and discriminated against her when a priest’s request for her to leave the GW Newman Center, which houses a Catholic chapel, after closing time escalated to her arrest and allegedly violent assault while in custody. The $1 million lawsuit levies allegations of intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence against the University, which Abii alleges is responsible for unnecessarily calling in police.
“Ms. Abii went seeking after solace at the GWU Newman Center that night, but she was most unfortunately met with discriminatory treatment and brute force,” the complaint reads.
The complaint states Abii, who was experiencing depression and anxiety at the time, was praying in the chapel following evening mass at the Newman Center on Dec. 5, 2018, when a presiding priest asked her to leave without telling her why. Abii said she didn’t realize the center was near closing time, but after continuing to kneel in prayer despite the priest’s calls for her to leave, the priest called GW Police Department officers, who arrived and in turn called Metropolitan Police Department officers, who arrested her.
“MPD did not need to be called,” Abii said in an interview. “I don’t know why they brought MPD, so that’s kind of the crux of this entire thing – is it didn’t need to be escalated to that point.”
University spokesperson Crystal Nosal said officials are aware of the complaint but have not yet been served with it.
“The complaint only presents the plaintiff’s side of the story,” Nosal said in an email. “The University looks forward to vigorously defending the case.”
Abii alleges that MPD officers “pounced on her” as she was still kneeling in the chapel, arrested her and brought her to jail where she was “assaulted, choked and maced in the face” by police. The complaint states Abii was not allowed to contact her family members, namely her mother and sister, while she was in custody.
“I’m not sure why it had to be escalated to that point,” Abii said. “It was an extremely traumatizing, extremely unnecessary situation that I don’t think anybody, any student should have to go through.”
An MPD report filed after the incident states a man named William Brendan Keene asked Abii to exit the building 15 times before GWPD officers arrived, and the officers also asked Abii to leave. The report states Abii resisted GWPD officers before MPD officers arrived and arrested her, and she was placed in hand restraints, patted down and transported to the Second District station “without incident.”
The report states Abii was “not cooperative” with GWPD and MPD, and she declined to share her personal information upon arrest. The incident occurred between 6:36 and 7:36 p.m., according to the report.
Abii was charged with unlawful entry, the report states.
Abii needed to receive medical treatment for her injuries from the alleged police-involved assault, creating additional expenses, according to the complaint. Since the arrest and alleged assault, Abii has suffered “extreme stress, worry, anxiety and nightmares,” the complaint states.
“Plaintiff deserved better from the University she called home since 2010,” the complaint reads. “The University she has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to in order to secure a quality education from. Her humble posture (kneeling in prayer) was not enough to grant her empathy or grace in that moment. Instead she was treated cruelly and like a criminal.”
The complaint states the Nwaneri Law Firm, whose attorney Ogo Nwaneri represents Abii, sent the University a demand letter in hopes of settling the dispute outside of court last month, but officials rejected the terms. The letter requested officials to issue Abii a written apology, reimburse her with $500,000, seal her criminal record and roll out “campus-wide reforms” through anti-bias, de-escalation and mental health training.
The complaint notes the incident’s alleged continuation of GWPD’s “well-known record of racist and discriminatory practices against African-American students on campus.”
“I can categorically state that this extreme response that the Plaintiff was met with would not be the same response a similarly situated White student would receive,” the complaint states. “There was a myriad of other appropriate ways of handling this situation.”
Abii said she hopes the lawsuit will help influence “systemic change” and reform within GWPD’s and the University’s handling of crisis management so other students don’t have to encounter a similar experience. She said officials should focus on protecting students rather than punishing them or calling MPD for assistance.
“If every time there’s a situation on campus that they escalated to MPD, then what’s the point of having GWPD on campus?” she said.
GWPD Chief James Tate, who joined the department in January, has focused on reforming the department and amending students’ relationships with officers over the past year after an officer allegedly pushed a student down a set of stairs in February. He has overseen the implementation of body-worn cameras and upgrades to its training program and hiring process, and he plans to release the department’s first-ever racial profiling report and start limiting police presence in low-crime areas next year.
Tate called GWPD training “woefully inadequate” in June before his new reforms started rolling out this fall.
