DC Metro Police issue arrest warrants for Turkish officials involved in protester beatdown

The Washington DC Metro police Department issued arrest warrants Thursday for 12 members of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogon’s security detail who beat protesters outside the Turkish Embassy last month.

As reported by The Associated Press:

District of Columbia Police Chief Peter Newsham joined Mayor Muriel Bowser at a news conference Thursday to announce arrest warrants issued for nine Turkish security guards, three Turkish police officers and two Canadians. Newsham urged those being sought and some still unidentified to surrender and face American justice, speaking a day after two other people were arrested in the case.

Newsham said the warrants should send “a message to the people of the world about how you behave in the District of Columbia.”

A video released of the May 16 melee caused national outrage and demands that the Trump administration respond to the foreign leader’s attack on American 1st Amendment rights.

And though there were questions about whether Erdogan and his security detail had diplomatic immunity at the time of the beating, a bipartisain group of U.S. senators urged the State Department to condemn the attack.

“It is wholly unacceptable for President Erdogan to bring his security personnel to our country and allow them to violently assault U.S. law enforcement officials, American citizens and U.S. residents engaged in peaceful demonstrations,” they wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in May.

Erdogan on Thursday responded to the charges, asking: “What kind of law is this?”

He added that he would fight the charges against his team: “If they are not going to protect me, why would I bring them with me to America?”

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