1989 DC Prostitute Expulsion

The 1989 DC Prostitute Expulsion was the attempted forced removal of a group of sex workers by members of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia on July 25. Police officers, frustrated by inability to clean up the prostitution problem in D.C.'s 14th Street red-light district, ordered a group of scantily clad women to march from the Thomas Circle area, down 14th Street to Virginia via the 14th Street Bridge.

As the hapless parade passed the Washington Monument about 1:30 in the morning, Washington Post reporter Bill Dedman happened by in a taxi on his way home from the Post newsroom, and began interviewing police officers and the women. He then ran to the Agriculture Department building across the Mall to use a pay phone to ask the Post metro desk to send a photographer. Before a photographer could be sent, Post photographer Stephen Jaffe also happened by on his way home from another assignment. He began taking photos, causing the police officers to flee. The women never crossed the bridge, but their presence on the approach ramp suggested the police officers' intent to make them march into Virginia. After the police left, the women were driven back to Thomas Circle by men in vans, which had been following the parade at a distance, and were back on street corners within half an hour. The next day, after politicians from Virginia complained, others noted that Virginia police had sent homeless people across bridges into D.C.^[1][2]

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