The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched an investigation into the infamous D.C. jail that held dozens of people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
The Justice Department this week sent a notice to D.C. officials that federal investigators are examining whether conditions inside D.C. Department of Corrections facilities dating back to 2021 violate the Constitution.
The probe follows a new lawsuit from a group of inmates who said they found rodents, including mice, in the jailhouse food.
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In a letter addressed to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon wrote that the Justice Department is seeking to determine if the city is failing to protect inmates from excessive force, failing to provide adequate medical care, failing to provide safe and sanitary conditions and failing to provide adequate nutrition.
The scope of the investigation, Ms. Dhillon wrote, will examine conditions for all D.C. jail inmates dating back to January 1, 2021, five days before the jails were filled with protesters arrested in connection with the riot.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the ongoing probe.
The investigation was launched days after current inmates not involved in the Jan. 6 riots filed a class action lawsuit claiming the food served to them was riddled with rodents, including dead mice and cockroaches.
The inmates reported the contaminated food, but the D.C. Office of Corrections dismissed their complaints and accused them of making it all up, according to the lawsuit.
“For decades, but at least since July 2023, the District of Columbia has been on notice of these systemic failures … yet has failed to implement any meaningful reforms to reflect the health and safety of individuals in its custody,” the lawsuit said.
Conditions at the D.C. jail received heightened scrutiny five years ago, after dozens of the pro-Trump Jan. 6 protesters spent days, weeks or months in custody there.
The jailed protesters complained of squalid conditions and mistreatment by correctional officers.
“They’ve been beaten by the guards. They are called white supremacists. They also told us they are denied medical treatment,” ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, Georgia Republican, said in December 2021.
Federal prosecutors in the Biden administration charged more than 1,500 people in connection with the Capitol riot, and hundreds served time in jail or federal prison.
The protesters marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after President Trump held a nearby rally in which he contested his election loss to President Joe Biden.
As Congress was set to certify Mr. Biden’s election win that day, some protesters pushed past police barricades to enter the Capitol grounds, and some smashed through windows and doors to gain entry into the building.
Rioters clashed violently with police. One officer died after suffering a stroke later in the day.
Dozens of Jan. 6 protesters who were prosecuted did not act violently, but walked through the barricades and into the Capitol through open doors, some propped open by police.
The mob forced lawmakers to flee in fear for their lives. Protester Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer after she kicked through a glass door leading into a hallway outside the House chamber.
Charges against the protesters ranged from trespassing and disorderly conduct to assaulting law enforcement officers.
Mr. Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of all Jan. 6 defendants after he was sworn in for his second term.
Some of the former inmates are suing over conditions they endured while jailed in D.C.
Ryan Samsel filed a lawsuit in June over his confinement in the D.C. jail. Mr. Samsel is seeking $17.9 million, claiming he was “repeatedly beaten, subject to other incidents of extraordinary physical and mental abuse and routine denied medical care.”
He was convicted on Feb. 26, 2024, of assaulting a police officer, obstructing an official proceeding in Congress and other charges related to the riot. He was pardoned less than a year later by Mr. Trump and was never sentenced.
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