D.C. police questioned over controversial search for guns

WASHINGTON - A video of a recent search for guns conducted in the District of Columbia is raising questions about the tactics police used to search several young black men sitting outside of a barber shop.

The men being searched recorded the video. They say the search happened in the 5200 block of Sheriff Road NE last Wednesday.

Officers appear to find a gun on one man standing near the group, and then explain to the rest of the men there that they will need to search them for weapons as a result.

The men say they believe the man found with the gun was working for the police because that man is seen on video getting in a car and driving away. Meanwhile, the other men outside the shop are searched.

"They jump out on us every day," one of the men searched told FOX 5.

The video prompted a letter to D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham and Mayor Muriel Bowser from Anthony Lorenzo Green, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for the area.

In the letter Green says, "I find [the tactics] appalling and this racist practice of policing against black and brown people must end now."

Green provided Newsham's response to his email to FOX 5. It says in part, "I will ensure that a full and complete investigation will be conducted. If police misconduct is sustained, we will take the appropriate measures to address. The Metropolitan Police Department is committed to fair, unbiased and constitutional policing. I am hopeful that the community we serve doesn't take any single incident of police misconduct and attribute that behavior to all of the men and women of this agency."

D.C. Police officials have not responded to FOX 5's questions about the incident.