Protests over police violence took place in Washington on Thursday for the seventh consecutive day. The demonstrations have evolved drastically since Monday, when a peaceful assembly was disrupted by an aggressive law enforcement offensive and more than 200 arrests were made, many for looting. By Thursday, the streets surrounding the White House had become an orderly ecosystem with a predictable routine and a block party atmosphere — until a thunderstorm moved in.
Here are some significant developments:
• D.C. police will prohibit vehicle traffic in much of downtown Washington on Saturday, starting at 6 a.m., in preparation for thousands of protesters expected to descend on the area. The closure is roughly between L Street NW to Independence Avenue SW. The west boundary is roughly along 19th Street NW, while the eastern boundary is roughly 9th Street NW downtown and Third Street NW along the Mall.
• D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Friday formally renamed a street outside the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza” after ordering city crews to paint the message in gigantic yellow letters down 16th Street. It’s a pointed message in support of demonstrators and against the president, who ordered an escalation of federal military and law enforcement presence on the streets of Washington in response to sporadic looting and unrest earlier in the week.
• Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) formally asked President Trump in a letter to “withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from Washington, D.C.” The Trump administration this week deployed military police and federal law enforcement to respond to demonstrations, drawing widespread criticism from activists and local officials that the tactics were making the situation worse.
Man accused of antagonizing protesters before clash
A young man began trying to antagonize protesters about 11 p.m. at H Street and Black Lives Matter Plaza.
A crowd formed around him, yelling at him. Protester Jordan Atwater, 26, intervened.
“He didn’t come out here to learn,“ Atwater told the crowd. “He came here to be dumb. Let him be dumb.“
The crowd began chanting again and drowned out the young man, who was white. But a moment later a cell phone went flying through the air and landed on the pavement, and the young man went running, with a crowd chasing after him. He ran along H Street west to Connecticut Avenue, where he found some police officers as the crowd was catching up to him. The officers soon took him into custody.
In an interview afterward, Atwater, who works in IT, explained what had happened.
“He just started riling people up, saying we’re ruining the country, saying we’re being violent and everything,” Atwater said. “So we were telling everyone just focus on the objective at hand, drown him out and ignore him. "He just kept trying and trying. He was trying to get somebody to hit him.”
Soon the man grabbed a protester’s phone and threw it, then punched the protester, said Atwater, who gave a statement to police.
“He was just trying to start a problem and then trying to act like we were the perpetrators, telling the cops it was us,” Atwater said. “But thankfully we had footage and everything.”
Police detain protesters blocking I-95 in Virginia
Virginia State Police detained members of a group of protesters who blocked the express lanes of Interstate 95 on Friday evening in Prince William County, a police spokeswoman said. Police reported placing 43 charges, including unlawful assembly, obstructing free passage and obstruction of justice.
The group of approximately 75 headed north stopping all travel on I-95 and then gained access to express lanes. The protesters then blocked the express lanes and started to head south when troopers were able to approach them.
Police said protesters were told to move to the left side of the highway and out of traffic “for their safety.” They were told that the group constituted an unlawful assembly and could be arrested. However, police said, the group failed to comply.
With the safety of the protesters a concern amid the rain and heavy Friday evening traffic, police said, the express lanes were closed until everyone was removed safely from the travel lanes.
Bowser trolls Trump with new feature at Black Lives Matter Plaza
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has loudly objected to the heavy presence of federal law enforcement and the military on D.C. streets this week in response to protests over the killing of George Floyd. She demanded the officers and soldiers be removed and even ordered the painting of “Black Lives Matter” in massive yellow letters on a street near the White House on Friday morning, escalating her feud with President Trump.
The moves have earned Bowser the enmity of the president, who took to Twitter the same day to denounce her “incompetence.”
Bowser hit back late Friday with a fresh display at the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza, as the gigantic slogan on 16th Street has been dubbed.
“We turned on the night light for him so he dreams about #BlackLivesMatter Plaza” Bowser tweeted along with a video.
The video shows “Black Lives Matter” being projected on the side of an office building that overlooks the slogan painted on the street.
He’s handing out yoga mats so protesters can sleep at Black Lives Matter Plaza
At about 10 p.m. at Black Lives Matter Plaza, someone rolled up with a load of yoga mats. The idea was to encourage people to spend the night on the plaza in view of the White House.
“We need people energized. We want people motivated. We want people comfortable,” said Anthony Johnson, 35. “Because we’re not leaving until we get justice.”
Johnson said he is a new member of the D.C. Street Medics, and he was organizing the yoga mat handout alongside the organization Social Workers 4 Justice. He said they brought 250 donated yoga mats and had handed out many of them.
Arrest made in case of teens assaulted while posting anti-police-brutality fliers
A 60-year-old Maryland man was arrested on three counts of misdemeanor assault Friday night amid allegations he attacked three people who were trying to post anti-police-brutality fliers along a bicycle trail in Bethesda.
Anthony B. Brennan, of Kensington, came across the trio — ages 18, 19 and 19 — while riding his bike Monday along the Capital Crescent Trail just before 1 p.m., authorities said.
One of the three recorded part of the ensuing encounter, which exploded across the Internet on Thursday as social media users spent two days trying to learn the man’s identity. Two men, including a retired police officer, were publicly named by Twitter users as the assailant — even though authorities would later say they had nothing to do with the incident.
Read the full story.
Protesters endure rain before heading to Capitol
The rain had slowed by 8 p.m. and a few hundred protesters remained in front of the White House, many holding umbrellas.
There was not a police officer in sight in the immediate vicinity, though some D.C. police cars circled the streets around the park.
“Say her name! Say her name!” the crowd chanted. “Breonna Taylor.”
A man played drums in the crowd and woman weaved through the crowd, spraying hand sanitizer on whoever wanted it.
“I hate being wet, “ a protester said. “But I’m getting used to it.”
In what has become a nightly ritual over the days of protests in the District, at 8:30 p.m. a group of about 500 protesters left the White House for the Capitol.
Marching through rain-slick streets, the crowd went north on 16th Street, stalling traffic and sparking blaring car horns from passing drivers. The group eventually headed to Pennsylvania Avenue, where they shouted, “Hey hey, ho ho! Donald Trump has got to go," as they passed the Trump International Hotel. D.C. police cars cleared the way ahead, and helicopters flew overhead.
‘The sky is angry, too.’ As rain pours down, protester sees symbol in weather
The heavy rain began dropping just as Magali was making her way to Friday night’s protest at Lafayette Square.
Rather than turn away for shelter, the 24-year-old D.C. resident, who declined to give her last name, hurried the rest of the way to the demonstration, where about 500 people remained in the rain chanting against police violence.
“I’m outraged,” she explained. “We need to channel our sadness and anger into something that really propels change. African Americans have been mistreated in this country since they were brought here."
This was the fifth night Magali had protested, and she planned to return tomorrow for more.
“As long as it takes," she said.
Tonight, the weather wasn’t going to force her away from the demonstrations.
“I feel like it’s symbolic,” Magali said. “The sky is angry, too.”
President Trump attacks D.C. mayor in tweet
President Trump lashed out at D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser on Friday evening after she sent a message to him earlier in the day by ordering “Black Lives Matter” painted in massive yellow letters on 16th Street near the White House.
Trump called Bowser “grossly incompetent” and said the Democrat was in “no way qualified” to be running an important American city.
“If the great men and women of the National Guard didn’t step forward, she would have looked no better than her counterpart Mayor in Minneapolis!” Trump added, referring to the looting and rioting that followed the killing of George Floyd in police custody there.
Bowser followed Trump’s tweet with one of her own. It was a campaign-style video that featured the mural being painted, Bowser speaking about the importance of black lives, and interviews and images from the protests of Floyd’s killing in D.C. The video did not mention Trump.
Bowser has strongly objected to the heavy federal response to protests in the city and on Thursday asked Trump to remove all federal law enforcement and military from the District.
On Friday afternoon, Trump also called Bowser incompetent in another tweet. When asked about the president calling her incompetent, Bowser retorted, “You know the thing about the pot and the kettle?”
‘Your fight is my fight.’ Protests display a diverse coalition of support
Corina Garay stood with a sign along Black Lives Matter Plaza that read "Tu Lucha is Mi Lucha.”
That’s “Your fight is my fight“ in Spanish. The other side read “Latinos 4 Black Lives.”
She was among many protesters Friday whose signs indicated support from specific minority groups.
“I have nieces, nephews, cousins and very close friends who are black and I feel personally affected by this,” said Garay, a 34-year-old accountant who lives in the District’s Ward 3.
“I’d like to see change,” Garay said. “I think it’s ridiculous that we are still fighting for the same things people were fighting for 50-plus years ago. I’m ready for actual reform.”
Not far away, Ashley van Norden held a sign that read “Asians 4 Black Lives.”
“I’m Asian and I know that a lot of people ahead of me have come forward and put their time and effort into making sure that we have our rights,” said van Norden, a 37-year-old D.C. Public Schools special-education teacher. “The more minorities that come out here to support this cause, it can only make us stronger, can only make the human race stronger.”
D.C. Guard grounds helicopters after low-flying manuever
The Washington D.C. Army National Guard has grounded its fleet of helicopters, a spokesperson said Friday, following a Monday incident where two helicopters flew low in an apparent show of force, blasting protesters below with the powerful downward force of air from their blades.
No flight operations will be conducted until an investigation is complete, Air Force Lt. Col. Brooke Davis, a spokesperson for the D.C. Guard, told The Washington Post.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper ordered the investigation after learning the details of the maneuvers, which he described as “unsafe” to reporters Wednesday.
The maneuvers stunned protesters, sending them scurrying for cover as the powerful gust, known as rotor wash, snapped tree limbs and swept broken glass into the air like shrapnel.
They also provoked criticism from military justice experts over the use of red crosses that are globally synonymous with a mission of mercy and care, not force. The helicopters involved, a UH-72 Lakota and UH-60 Blackhawk, were both medevac helicopters, Davis said.
Defense officials have not said what the helicopters were doing, but Esper said they were not on a medical mission.
Flying low on people and vehicles is a common military tactic to incite fear, disperse crowds and warn of other capabilities, like rockets and guns, Kyleanne Hunter, a former Marine Corps pilot who flew Cobra attack helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan, told The Post.
A mixed-race boy, 8, held a sign with a message: ‘I could be next’
Dresden Farrand waited in the steamy evening air on Freedom Plaza on Friday with several family members, twin 5-year-olds and her son, Owen, 8.
She has been at protests all week — including in the family’s hometown of Manassas.
Owen held a sign: “I could be next.”
Dresden Farrand is black; her husband white. She said she has been taking Owen to protests related to police aggression toward people of color for years. This time, she said, the crowd looks more diverse, younger.
“This has been his entire life,” she said, gesturing toward Owen. But he didn’t feel like going today. “I told him, we have to be out here, things aren’t getting any better. I tell him: You’re doing your civic duty.”
Farrand plans to return to D.C. on Saturday.
Thunderstorms drench protesters, but few move
When big heavy drops of rain began falling just before 6:30 p.m., few among the roughly 1,000 protesters in front of the White House moved.
“George Floyd! George Floyd!” they chanted.
They then marched a few steps, faced the White House, and roared: “Black Lives Matter!"
“We’re here to prove our point,” said 20-year-old Tania Murphy. “We can’t give up now. Just a little bit of water.”
At a separate protest at Freedom Plaza, the crowd of about 300 people ignored the rain as it swept in with fat drops. Wrapped in plastic ponchos or huddled in pairs beneath umbrellas, they chanted and whooped as one speaker railed against D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser.
“If she really believed black lives matter she wouldn’t let the police keep targeting us,” one protester said. “If black lives mattered to her, she’d do more to create affordable housing.”
It was the second straight night of rain for protesters. On Thursday, heavy thunderstorms also moved through Washington.
Protesters blare MLK speech at the White House
Protesters blared Martin Luther King Jr.'s last sermon — “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” — in front of the White House just before 6 p.m. Friday.
“We aren’t going to let any mace stop us,” King said in the speech. “We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don’t know what to do.”
The protesters were largely quiet, holding their Black Lives Matter signs and listening to the speech, crisply playing over large speakers that had been set up in front of the AFL-CIO headquarters.
“It’s phenomenal,” said Jaqueline Stallworth, a 49-year-old teacher. “Everything he is saying is still relevant today.”
After police crackdowns on demonstrators, she decided it was time to protest
Myreim Seabron, 38, a Maryland assistant attorney general who lives outside Annapolis, came to D.C. to protest George Floyd’s killing for the first time on Friday. She traveled with her wife and a friend.
Seabron said she was motivated by seeing protesters cleared out from Lafayette Square on Monday and also seeing police crack down on protesters in New York City.
She said it seemed like it would be “good to be seen taking an opportunity to say the people have a right to assemble on issues of the public interest.”
The women said they weren’t sure they’d be back Saturday due to reports of huge crowds.
“There’s still a pandemic,” she said.
Downtown D.C. was a land of boards and signs between 5 and 6 p.m. Nearly all businesses were covered in wood, and everyone on the street was a protester going one way or another. Yet at the same time, it also had the calm, routine vibe of a workday with people peacefully on their way.
Dark storm clouds moved overhead as some headed for a “Stop Cop Terror” protest at 6 p.m. at Freedom Plaza. A cool wind started to sweep in.
Asked what they thought of the “Black Lives Matter” mural, the trio paused in silence.
It seemed to give a celebratory vibe — like something this week had been accomplished, Seabron said.
“I just hope folks won’t be out here in six months protesting another unjust killing”