U.S. Attorney Angela George dismissed all charges against street preacher Lance Johnson at his hearing, August 17 at the U.S. District Court. Johnson had entered the same courthouse May 18, unhoused and strapped with four citations from U.S. Park Police, and left three months later, a housed street preacher without any court hearings in his calendar.
“By the grace of God,” Johnson said of his hearing outcome. “I’m happy.”
At the previous hearing, George requested the case remain open until August so that Johnson could find housing using a federal voucher he had recently received. With that contingency fulfilled and his proof of housing submitted, Johnson can now focus on collecting the items from his “street ministry” which were confiscated and held as evidence since his arrest on March 3.
Johnson received federal citations for “violating camping conditions,” “camping outside of a designated area,” “violating closures and public use limits” and “creating or maintaining a hazardous environment” for his tent and street ministry that were located in Murrow Park, near the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and H Street NW. The last listed citation has been a source of particular frustration for Johnson.
Johnson was “camping and impeding use of the park — thus creating a hazardous condition,” Sergeant Anna Rose, the D.C. Park Police’s Public Information Officer, told Street Sense in an email in May. “There was no item in particular that was deemed hazardous.”
Johnson believes that Park Police issued the “hazardous environment” citation in order to withhold his possessions as evidence, rather than release them the same day he was released from police custody, as had been the case during previous arrests.
Of the 13 times Park Police have filed a report on an incident involving Johnson since November 2014, four have resulted in his arrest. Of those four arrests, officers reported one instance of releasing Johnson’s possessions to him when he left police custody.
Without knowledge of his cases, Rose said she could not comment on Johnson’s claim that his items were always returned to him upon his release. However, she wrote, “When objects seized in the course of an arrest are deemed as evidence of the crime, then those objects are held until the criminal proceedings are concluded, or a judge orders the items returned.”
At the May 18 hearing, George claimed to have attempted to contact Johnson to return his belongings. However after that hearing, the return of his “ministry,” along with the dismissal of charges, became contingent upon securing housing by August 17. Now, with the final hearing past, both Johnson and a local attorney that has helped him review documents, Jane Zara, have a lot of praise to lend the prosecution team.
“I was delighted with how efficient the prosecutor [George] treated the case,” Zara said in an interview. “She really simplified the process, and the communication was great.”
Although he now has a place to rest his head, Johnson plans to continue holding his ministry in Murrow Park.
