Mount Pleasant riot
The Mount Pleasant riot, which occurred on May 5, 1991, in Washington, D.C., stemmed from an incident involving a police officer and a Spanish-speaking male during a Cinco de Mayo festival. The officer attempted to arrest the man for public drinking but shot him, claiming he threatened her with a knife, which escalated tensions among festival-goers, primarily from the Hispanic community. As news of the shooting spread, crowds turned violent, leading to clashes with police, property damage, and significant injuries among law enforcement. The response from the metropolitan police was criticized for being poorly coordinated, with communication failures and a lack of Spanish-speaking officers exacerbating the situation. In the aftermath, the mayor declared a state of emergency, deploying over a thousand officers in riot gear, which further inflamed local sentiments. Investigations revealed systemic issues within the police, including misconduct and failure to properly engage with the Hispanic community. As a result, efforts were initiated to improve police-community relations, including recruiting bilingual officers and adjusting policing strategies to better serve diverse neighborhoods. The riot is often viewed in the context of urban unrest and the underlying tensions related to race, socioeconomic status, and policing in communities of color.
On this Page
Mount Pleasant riot
The Event A two-day civil disturbance in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Date May 5-6, 1991
Place Washington, D.C.
The Mount Pleasant riot in Washington, D.C., in May, 1991, highlighted the tensions between the primarily English-speaking African American metropolitan police force and the primarily Spanish-speaking residents of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. It further exposed various procedural and communications failures of the police department and widespread violation of civil rights by members of the metropolitan police force.
The Mount Pleasant riot is categorized as an urban commodity riot in which members of a lower socioeconomic urban group riot against property owners and symbols of public authority, represented by the police. On May 5, 1991, during a Cinco de Mayo neighborhood festival, an African American English-speaking female police officer attempted to arrest a Spanish-speaking male for drinking alcohol in public. The police officer initially stated that the male suspect threatened her with a knife. The officer shot the man in the chest. She later stated she thought the male suspect had a knife in his possession.
The crowds of Hispanics celebrating in the streets of Mount Pleasant heard about the shooting and quickly turned violent against other police on duty at the festival. Widespread communications equipment failures among members of the metropolitan police force, lack of specific information about what actually happened, no Spanish-speaking officers available to respond quickly, and an overall lack of coordinated police response contributed to an escalation of the violence. Few additional police officers were deployed to the neighborhood, and some police cars and neighborhood stores were damaged. Rain in the early hours of the morning helped break up crowds of angry Hispanic young men in the streets.
Washington, D.C., mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly met with Hispanic community leaders on May 6 to ask them to help restore order. By nightfall, however, the metropolitan police force had deployed more than one thousand police in riot gear in the four-square-mile Mount Pleasant area. This heavy police presence infuriated the Mount Pleasant residents. Local news stations carried extensive coverage of the disturbance. The news coverage attracted a number of young men from outside the Mount Pleasant neighborhood who simply wanted to participate in the disturbance and fight with the police. Larger-scale rioting and property damage ensued. Mayor Kelly declared a state of emergency not only in Mount Pleasant but also in the surrounding neighborhoods of Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights, which was not lifted until May 9, 1991. This curfew upset many of the residents of the wealthier neighborhood of Columbia Heights. The vast majority of residents stayed inside after the mayor declared the state of emergency. Small groups of young men continued to engage the police and threw rocks and bottles at them, but little additional property was damaged. The statistics are significant: 230 people were arrested for curfew violations and looting; 50 police officers were injured; 60 police cars and at least 20 city buses were damaged or burned. Property damage totaled several hundred thousand dollars.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights investigated police conduct during the Mount Pleasant riot. In its 1993 report, the commission found the metropolitan police department guilty of widespread police misconduct both leading up to and during the disturbance, including the use of racist language against Hispanics, excessive force, harassment of Hispanics for possible immigration violations, and a failure to investigate previous charges of police misconduct against Hispanic members of the community.
Mayor Kelly accepted the commission’s findings. She acknowledged that members of the Hispanic community had long-standing, legitimate complaints against the metropolitan police force, including repeated police failures to respond to emergency calls in Spanish. The police force immediately began efforts to recruit bilingual Spanish-English candidates for police officers and emergency dispatchers. To help regain the trust of the Hispanic community, the police further agreed to cease asking any questions regarding a person’s immigration status. The police force agreed to place as many Spanish-speaking officers as possible in predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods and to institute a type of community policing that deployed the same officers in the same areas so both police officers and community residents could get to know one another.
Mayor Kelly disputed the accusation that the police acted in a heavy-handed manner in Mount Pleasant at the request of newer and wealthier residents. The accusation was that these newer residents wanted the police to get tough on groups of Hispanic men who were causing problems such as littering and public consumption of alcohol.
Impact
As a result of police behavior during the Mount Pleasant riot, the U.S. Department of Justice took over investigations of metropolitan police misconduct as the police force itself was deemed unable to conduct impartial investigations. Mayor Kelly was criticized for hesitating in her response to the first night of disturbances, for not holding the police to high standards of professional conduct, for their lapses in its training methods, for their faulty internal investigatory procedures, and for not adequately funding the police department at a level that would permit it to purchase fully functioning communications equipment. In her defense, Mayor Kelly stated that problems in and with the metropolitan police force occurred long before her tenure as mayor. Mayor Kelly subsequently left politics.
The police force did establish community liaisons within the Hispanic community in order to have ongoing channels of communications. They also made a sustained effort to recruit, train, and hire more bilingual police officers. The Mount Pleasant neighborhood has seen an influx of wealthier non-Hispanic residents move in and gentrify the neighborhood. Rising housing prices have pushed portions of the Hispanic community into less expensive areas of the city.
Bibliography
Fuchs, Lawrence. The American Kaleidoscope: Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic Culture. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1990. A sociological study of the conditions necessary in order for riots and other types of civil disturbances to occur.
Waddington, David. Public Order Policing: Theory and Practice. London: Willan Publishing, 2007. A scholarly study and classification of all types of civil disturbances around the world. Includes a brief analysis of the Mount Pleasant riot.