Oladele Omonijo and Lemma Desalegne at Beckett Field
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New Carrollton’s highest officials allowed police to prevent taxi drivers from collecting signatures for a petition at a public event held earlier this month.
Neither Mayor Andrew Hanko nor Chief David Rice were available for comment Friday. But City Administrative Officer Mike Downes, in an email to TheFightBack, denied the accusation, saying the signature gathering was “annoying people,” but no one was told to leave. Drivers have a different take.
National Night Out, Aug. 2, thousands attended events held throughout Prince George’s County. Members of the Prince George’s County Taxi Workers Alliance collected petition signatures at thirteen separate locations, according to organizer Henock Wogderse.
Oladele Omonijo and Lemma Desalegne, both members of the Taxi Workers Alliance, were assigned to Beckett Field in New Carrollton. However, according to both Desalegne and Omonijo, they were run-off by Officer Lyew (badge number 3112).
“We lost our rights that day,” said Desalegne, as he stood beside Omonijo on the field where the Aug. 2 incident took place. “This is a violation of United States of America Constitution,” said Desalegne. “We are not dangerous. We [were] not doing nothing. We [were] part of the event. We [were just] collecting signatures to satisfy our goal.”
Omonijo said that Officer Lyew told the drivers that “we have to pre-register before we can collect petitions. As a result of us not pre-registering… we could not collect petitions in a public forum like this.” Calls placed Friday to Officer Lyew and the New Carrollton police department were not returned.
“We weren’t going to get into an argument with him,” said Omonijo. “I told Lemma to let us go and report the incident to the chief of police, [who] has authority over him.”
According to Omonijo and Desalegne, as they approached Chief Rice, who was in attendance, he was standing beside Mayor Hanko. “The mayor and the chief of police talked and then they authorized us to go back,” said Omonijo.
“But as soon as we got back, doing our business, collecting the signatures, the officer saw us. [Officer Lyew] walked up to us and said that he had told us not to collect [signatures] because we didn’t pre-register,” said Omonijo.
According to the drivers, they told Lyew that they’d been given the okay by Mayor Hanko and Chief Rice. “[Lyew] said, ‘Follow me. Follow me. We followed him to the mayor and the chief of police,” said Omonijo. “He whispered in their ear. We did not hear what he was telling them. They just turned around and said we can’t [collect signatures].”
Omonijo and Desalegne then left the field, fearing they would continue to be targeted by Lyew, who had already threatened them with a $400 ticket, according to Desalegne.
Downes disputes the drivers’ account. In an email to TheFightBack, he wrote:
“The gentleman representing the taxicab company at the City’s National Night Out celebration was annoying the participants and was politely asked to stand at the main entrance and solicit his petition signatures as opposed to wandering around the premises annoying people. He agreed and that was that. He did not make contact with Mayor Hanko, but rather Chief Rice was the city representative with whom the gentleman conversed. Chief Rice conferred with me and I approved what I thought was a fair solution. He had access to all of the participants as they either entered or departed.”
Drivers are collecting petition signatures in order to place the recently passed, anti-driver legislation, known as CB-3, on the Nov. 2012 ballot as a referendum. In order to achieve this they need to collect 3,300 valid signatures from registered Prince George’s County voters by Aug. 28 (and then they’ll need to get an additional 6,700 signatures by 45 days after Aug. 28).
Much of the Taxi Workers Alliance strategy focused on National Night Out, which presented a unique opportunity. “It was full blown activities. People were everywhere,” said Omonijo. “We could have been able to collect as many [signatures] as possible because people were interested in what we were doing. They know that it’s genuine, [that] it is legitimate. They know that we want to break [the] monopoly,” Omonijo said.
Prince George’s drivers report experiencing similar police interference in at least one other National Night Out event. (TheFightBack will be looking into this.)
Omonijo said, “This to me looks as if it is a conspiracy in order to prevent us from reaching our goal.”
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