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When you hear the charge “assaulting a police officer,” you might assume that an officer has been hurt or injured while serving the community. But in D.C., you might not be able to take so-called APOs at face value. WAMU 88.5 investigative reporter Patrick Madden, along with journalist Christina Davidson, teamed with the Center For Investigative Reporting's Reveal program and American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop to document and analyze nearly 2,000 cases with charges of assaulting a police officer. The results raise concerns about the use or overuse of the charge. Some defense attorneys see troubling indicators in the numbers, alleging that the law is being used as a tactic to cover up police abuse and civil rights violations. The statute “goes too far and criminalizes too much,” one expert says. http://wamu.org/projects/assault-on-justice/