DC's Mayor and Top City Leaders Free After Civil Disobedience Arrests

WASHINGTON - They are calling themselves the DC 41. Mayor Vincent Gray, members of the DC Council, including Chairman Kwame Brown, and civic activists, who blocked traffic on Constitution Avenue on Capitol Hill during the Monday afternoon rush hour.

Now they're saying the fight for DC budget autonomy has just begun. At a luncheon before real estate professionals, Vince Gray's message to Congress was, "Let's get it on."

He reiterated his mantra that the District should be allowed to spend its own money on abortions for low-income women and to opt against a voucher scholarship program that some Congressional lawmakers want the city to have.

FOX 5 has learned new details about when Gray decided he wanted to be arrested on Monday afternoon in front of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Ilir Zherka, Executive Director for DC Vote, says Gray told him he was ready to be arrested when they met at L'Enfant Plaza Hotel on Sunday evening.

Six council members were at the rally and were arrested with Gray. Seven other council members were not at the rally.

FOX 5 checked with all of the council members who were absent. Council members and their staff told us that the members were either conducting officials business or taking care of family obligations and that is why they were unable to attend.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's non-voting Congressional delegate, did not attend Monday's protest.

She told a news conference the mayor hosted at Planned Parenthood, she didn't want Congress to think the demonstration was a put up job that she was responsible for.

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http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/dc/dcs-mayor-and-top-city-le aders-free-after-civil-disobedience-arrests-041211

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