May Day Redress

When the thousands of May Day demonstrators marching in the "Army of Peace" in Washington in 1971 tried, somewhat grandiosely, to shut down the Federal Government, the police found an efficient tactic to keep the city moving: mass arrest. During the protests, the capital police rounded up more than 13,000 persons, herding them, it seemed, into every lockup in town, including a fenced-in practice field near R.F.K. Memorial Stadium. Most were released the next day.

The Federal Government hummed on. So did a bitter controversy about the constitutionality of such wholesale and indiscriminate arrests. Of all those collared, only a handful were ever brought to trial. The American Civil Liberties Union filed three class-action suits seeking damages for false arrests. A score of those imprisoned have filed similar accusations. Last week two received some satisfaction.

U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard A. Gesell awarded the first civil damages from the litigation--a total of $9,000 in damages and legal fees to two Labor Department employees who were caught in the dragnet. The city government, which must pay the damages, argued that the mass arrests were justified by an emergency situation, but Judge Gesell declared: "The constitutional protections that are available to citizens of this country are protections which must be zealously safeguarded, and the appropriate time to safeguard them particularly is in times of stress and strain."

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