DC Council Overrides Bowser Veto, Requiring Police to Log Federal Agents

The District of Columbia's full city council voted unanimously Tuesday to override Mayor Muriel Bowser's veto of the Full Accountability in Arrest Reporting Emergency Amendment Act, a measure requiring Metropolitan Police Department officers to document the names and employing agencies of any federal agents present during arrests or use-of-force incidents.

The 13-0 override came roughly a week after Bowser took a split position on a paired set of transparency measures, signing a bill authored by Councilmember Brooke Pinto that mandated release of body-camera footage in serious use-of-force incidents involving federal agents, while vetoing the officer-log provision. The council had originally passed both measures unanimously on March 3.

Councilmember Robert White, who co-authored the log requirement with Pinto, framed the stakes bluntly at Tuesday's meeting. "This is a reality of Black men getting shot at, unarmed by federal agents," he said. White pointed specifically to the October 17 shooting of Phillip Brown, an unarmed Northeast D.C. man fired upon by a Homeland Security Investigations agent during a traffic stop for tinted windows. Initial MPD incident reports and court documents omitted any mention of gunfire; it was only after attorneys raised the issue publicly that police acknowledged the shooting. Brown's felony charges were quickly dismissed.

The FAAR Act directly responds to that gap. Under the law, any federal officer's name and agency affiliation must become part of MPD's official documentation when force is used, records that fall under the department's existing public transparency procedures. The requirement gives residents, journalists, and civil-rights investigators a paper trail that, in the Brown case, did not exist until pressure forced disclosure.

White, acknowledging the cooperation between him and Pinto on the final version, told colleagues the council had reached a "collegial compromise." He added: "I wish the mayor had stayed unanimous with us."

The ACLU of D.C. praised the override as a step toward "protecting residents from abuse of power by federal law enforcement." Civil-rights advocates had argued the log requirement was essential to independent review precisely because D.C.'s status as a federal district, without full state sovereignty, leaves fewer structural checks on agencies operating within city limits than exist elsewhere in the country.

Bowser's veto message had argued the measure risked complicating operational coordination with federal authorities and could run into jurisdictional conflicts. Federal agency concerns about intergovernmental friction are expected to persist as the law takes effect.

The council's session was not without its own internal friction. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson moved to postpone a separate vote on extending an emergency youth curfew after determining there were not enough members prepared to support it. The curfew had been introduced to address so-called "teen takeovers," large youth gatherings in commercial areas that D.C. police and Bowser have sought to curtail.

Both Pinto and White are currently running to succeed Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton in Congress, and their negotiated compromise on the transparency package added a political dimension to what was already a charged debate over home rule, federal power, and the limits of local oversight in a city that hosts the agencies it is now trying to hold accountable.