A federal judge ruled Thursday that police in the nation’s capital illegally seized a gun from a man they stopped outside a laundromat, blasting the officers’ account as unreliable and sharply criticizing Justice Department prosecutors for relying on testimony from an officer who has been discredited by other judges.
The ruling comes at a moment when policing in Washington, D.C., is under an extraordinary spotlight, with the city grappling with rising public scrutiny of officer misconduct and the Trump administration directing a surge of federal law enforcement resources into the district earlier this year.
