Former Metropolitan Police Officer Sentenced for Federal Civil Rights Violations

Friday, March 1, 2024

Defendant Attacked Two Men With Illegal Chokeholds

            WASHINGTON – Mark Lamont Clark, 57, a former officer with the Metropolitan Police Department, was sentenced today to six months in prison for two counts of deprivation of civil rights under color of law, announced by U.S. Attorney Matthew M Graves and Chief Pamela Smith, of the Metropolitan Police Department. Clark was convicted in May of 2023.

            According to evidence presented in court, on July 13, 2018, while acting under color of law and fully dressed in his MPD uniform, Clark applied a prohibited chokehold to victim D.T., causing bodily injury through an unlawful use of excessive force, outside a McDonald’s restaurant, following a confrontation Clark had with a friend of D.T.  Just five days later, on July 18, 2018, while acting under color of law and again fully dressed in his MPD uniform, Clark similarly escalated a verbal confrontation with a McDonald’s patron, victim K.C., and then applied a prohibited chokehold and a prohibited carotid artery hold to K.C., causing bodily injury. Both offenses were captured on Clark’s MPD body-worn camera (BWC).

            U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, who presided over Clark’s trial, also ordered the defendant to serve two years of supervised release.

           This case was investigated by the Internal Affairs Division of the Metropolitan Police Department.

           The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Truscott and George Eliopoulos of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.