Before D.C. police officers hauled her from her grandmother’s house and charged her with assault, Makia Gorham’s family tried to tell police they had the wrong person, according to a recently filed lawsuit.
Shortly after the officers arrived, the lawsuit says, Gorham’s brother realized they should have been looking for a different person with a familiar face: her identical twin.
Trying to correct the error, he called the twin and had her tell the officer that they had the wrong sister, an exchange caught on an officer’s body camera, according to the lawsuit.
Gorham, who filed the complaint in D.C. Superior Court last week detailing the incident, said police arrested her anyway, an ordeal that caused her to suffer panic attacks severe enough to prompt police to take her to a hospital.
After she was released from the hospital, police took Gorham, 34, to a holding cell in a van, a ride in which she said she was handcuffed and left without a seat belt. She slid across the van and struck her head, according to the complaint and an interview with The Washington Post.
Gorham spent the night in the cell and was not brought before a judicial officer until some 36 hours after her arrest, according to the lawsuit.
One year later, Gorham said she still suffers from panic and anxiety attacks, and has “lost a lot of confidence in myself.”
“This ruined my life,” Gorham said in an interview on Thursday. “I didn’t do anything. I’m a working mother: I go to work, I go home, I take care of my children, and I take care of my responsibilities.”
Gorham’s suit seeks unspecified damages for false arrest, malicious prosecution and emotional distress.
D.C. police and the District’s attorney general’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing pending litigation.
The ordeal began on Sept. 21, 2025, when D.C. police officers arrived at the home in Southeast Washington where Gorham was staying with several family members, including her young daughter, according to the lawsuit.
Officers were looking for someone who had allegedly spit on a woman in January last year, after a dispute about child support payments owed by the woman’s son, who had a child with Gorham’s sister, according to the lawsuit.
Several months before the arrest, a detective reinterviewed the woman, the lawsuit states, showed her a photograph of Gorham and asked whether that was the person who assaulted her. The woman, according to the suit, said yes.
The lawsuit alleges the officer erred by not checking a police database that would have revealed the suspect had an identical twin sister, nor did he show the victim a photo array. The suit describes the identification procedure as “inherently suggestive.”
The detective who wrote Gorham’s arrest affidavit should have realized he had the wrong person, because Gorham did not have a child with the victim’s son — her sister did, the lawsuit says. Nor did the detective include in the document that she had an identical twin, according to the lawsuit.
“Had the affidavit included the relevant facts detailing that Ms. Gorham has an identical twin and the twin fit the descriptors of the suspect, it would not have established probable cause, and a judge would not have signed a warrant for plaintiff’s arrest,” the lawsuit says.
Jacqueline Yarbro, Gorham’s attorney, said in an interview it was “shocking” that her client was arrested even after Gorham’s twin sister implicated herself as being involved in the alleged assault.
A former prosecutor, Yarbro said the responsibility for Gorham’s false arrest ultimately lies with the detective and other officers for failing to conduct a proper investigation.
“The police need to be held to a higher standard, to a standard of basic diligence, to ensure these types of things don’t happen,” she said.
After her arrest, Gorham said she was held in custody overnight, then transferred to the courthouse the next morning where she waited until 11 p.m. to see a judge.
Gorham was released from custody after her initial appearance, then subjected to random drug testing and in-person reporting requirements, the lawsuit says. Her case lasted two months before prosecutors dropped the charges without explanation, Gorham’s attorney said.
It does not appear Gorham’s sister was charged in the incident, according to public records.
Gorham described the experience as “humiliating.” She’s also worried about the lingering impact it may have on her 3-year-old daughter and her grandmother, who is nearly 86 and who now sleeps downstairs. That’s because her grandmother now feels a need to guard the house, Gorham said.
“These are the people that are supposed to be protecting us, and I cannot trust them,” Gorham said. “I went through something firsthand that would make me say I cannot trust them.”
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