Live updates: Protesters pour into D.C. over death of George Floyd; downtown streets closed to traffic
Here are some significant developments:
• Several protests were taking place Saturday afternoon in Washington, including along K Street NW, near the White House, the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. Nearly a dozen different demonstrations run by as many organizations or individuals have been advertised for Saturday. Unlike many other large-scale demonstrations that the District hosts, no one person or organization is leading Saturday’s events.
• Though D.C. police and the National Park Service are preparing for tens of thousands of demonstrators, no one can say exactly how many to expect. Typical mechanisms used to gauge crowd size have been suspended or scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Park Service has stopped issuing protest permits.
• D.C. police began to prohibit vehicle traffic in much of downtown Washington at 6 a.m. Saturday 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 western boundary is roughly along 19th Street NW, while the eastern boundary is roughly along Ninth Street NW downtown and Third Street NW along the Mall.
Demonstrators merge at the Capitol: ‘We want change! We are the future!'
Groups of protesters crisscrossed the plaza of the U.S. Capitol just before noon, chanting, waving signs, kneeling and marching to and from different directions.
At 11 a.m., the plaza was empty, save a few joggers in the high heat and a half dozen police standing behind metal barricades. A few minutes later, police started scrambling and a few dozen more officers poured out of the northeast side of the Capitol, as about 100 young marchers, mostly of color, came up the hill to the plaza, marching and chanting: “No justice! No peace.
“We’re here because of George Floyd. But he was just the cherry on top of a sour sundae that’s been there for years,” said a woman with a bullhorn.
Another group of older protesters from a faith group crossed the plaza, heading to another protest downtown.
By 11:45 a.m., a second group of young people approached the plaza, coming down East Capitol Street, chanting, “We want change! We are the future!” Soon the two groups merged on the plaza and a rally began.
Patrick Garland, a teacher from Woodbridge, reflected on the new “Black Lives Matter” sign painted on 16th Street NW.
“As grateful as I am for a road, that doesn’t fix institutional racism. Until laws and citations are changed across the U.S., this does not stop!” he said to cheers.
Later, he told The Post that the protests need help: data analysis, legislation and voting.
“For black people, it’s like emptying an ocean with a bucket. But police reform is first. You can’t be productive if you don’t feel safe. To see a cop behind you and think: ‘Am I going to be pulled over and die?’ That’s what it’s like to be a black man.”
Then the last few protesters packed up as they headed toward the White House.
“Be safe y’all! Hydrate!” yelled a police officer from behind the barriers. Within five minutes, the plaza was again largely empty.
Hundreds begin to assemble at the Lincoln Memorial
Between the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial, the members of the National Guard could see the people arriving again, on foot, on bikes and on the shoulders of their parents, gathering for another day of protests at the place where Martin Luther King Jr. told the world of his dream.
By noon, hundreds were waiting for a scheduled “die in” to begin, far outnumbering the Guard’s presence of a few dozen.
A bearded black man arrived with a picture of the newly erected fences at The White House: “The Burger King finally built his damn wall,” his sign said.
A mother begged her young daughter to put her mask back on.
“No problem,” Jason said. “Have a safe day.”
Siblings Jason and Sarah Jones, who are African American, were joining the demonstrations for the first time Saturday, after a week of finding it hard to focus at their jobs. Sarah, who teaches a “dialogue across difference” class at American University, felt relieved to finally be a part the uprising — and wary of how long it would last.
“I am worried that for a lot of people this is just momentary,” she said. “But my life revolves around this because of the color of my skin.”
Beside her, a white man threw a football to his son. People raised their phones to take selfies, pulling down their masks.
“I’m worried that all the sudden we’ll see a spike in coronavirus cases, and we’ll stop talking about black lives matter,” Sarah said.
Vendors selling T-shirts, masks find a silver lining amid despair
Just south of the roadblock set up by a parked tan military Humvee on 16th Street NW, sellers hawked T-shirts printed with the words “I can’t breathe” across a silhouette of George Floyd’s face. Black shirts, blue shirts, yellow shirts, orange, small, large, XL, XXL, all $20 a piece.
Sold by a loose-knit group of D.C. entrepreneurs, the shirts were designed almost instantly when Floyd died.
“Day it happened when he said ‘I can’t breathe,’ it went to print,” said Jessie Watkins, 55, who lives in Southeast D.C.
Watkins said business has been brisk, selling 17 dozen shirts on one day this week. In preparation for today’s march, the group stocked up for another big day.
“A lot of times they put it straight on,” said Blaine Proctor, a colleague of Watkins’s who worked a block away.
Some have bought as many as a dozen shirts to send to relatives, and the vendors are grateful. Even amid the pain, Proctor said, the reality is that the protests have provided his T-shirt business with an opportunity that the coronavirus had taken away. Typically, the vendors would be traveling across the country selling all sorts of shirts at festivals and other events — but the pandemic ended that until Floyd’s death.
“Covid-19, it put a stop to everything,” said Proctor, who is black. “This is a blessing right here. I’m not saying I’m happy with what happened to George Floyd. I’m not.” But the protests have allowed him to contribute to the cause while also earning money.
All around, people walked in a festival-like atmosphere. Loud speakers played everything from Sam Cooke and Al Green to Van Morrison amid protest chants, while people carried signs such as “Black Lives and Voices Matter,” walked dogs and rolled in slowly on bikes. Many stopped to marvel at the giant yellow letters under them: “Black Lives Matter,” which the city painted Friday to support protesters and also send a message to President Trump.
Nearby at 16th and I streets NW, between the large yellow M and A on the asphalt, Ben Bullock stood with a black wire cart and a crowd around him. Inside his cart were thin plastic cases filled with black face masks. Some had white lettering that said “Black Lives Matter” while others had red fists adorned with the same message.
“$15 each,” he told a buyer.
Bullock, 57, is an assistant basketball coach at Prince George’s County Community College. Typically, he would be hosting basketball camps in the summer, a crucial part of his income. But the coronavirus has taken that opportunity away.
In the protests, he saw opportunity and a need. Making and selling T-shirts to black empowerment groups and for festivals has always been a side gig for him and a business partner, he said. So they decided to order up masks. If he wasn’t selling them, he said, a white entrepreneur would be.
“As a basketball coach, I really don’t make a lot of money,” Bullock said. “I feel good about it because white America capitalizes on all of us, and I’m contributing to the cause.”
He said he is employing five others, walking around selling his masks. “An independent business,” he said, keeping money in the community.
U.S. Capitol grounds are getting fenced off as families, children prepare for protest
There were no protesters at the Capitol on Saturday morning, just runners. But day by day, the Capitol has been increasingly walled off.
Officers ran tests of the audible emergency notification system, sound echoing off the stone buildings. Tall black fencing had gone up in front of parts of the Capitol building. Earlier in the week, more than 1,000 people filled part of the plaza and lawns on the eastern front, but Saturday morning the plaza was fenced off. While people continued to jog along the paths and the edges of the grounds, officers waved them off if they veered in toward the building.
Police lights flashed at intersections, with military trucks blocking Pennsylvania Avenue west toward the White House. Folding tables were set up, with cases of water on them. People jogged along the Mall and did jumping jacks in front of the National Gallery.
At 9:45 a.m., Shanise Hamilton and members of her family, including eight children, were walking along the Mall, already tired and hot. They had walked from their homes in Southeast and Southwest Washington.
This week was Hamilton’s first time protesting. “We’re all tired,” she said, tired of people dying. “The kids wanted to make a difference. The fact that they are kids of color, I didn’t just want them to witness history, I wanted them to be a part of history.” And maybe having kids at the forefront would help make change, she said.
Zinna Marcus, 9, said she wants “to see everyone treated equally.”
Antonio Hamilton, 11, said he wants “people to get along and for the police to stop killing unarmed people.”
Kaylin Schuler, who’s also 11, said she hopes “for people with my complexion to be able to stand up for themselves.”
“Police need to communicate better with black people and understand us a little better,” said Amari Schuler, 11.
They were going to get as close to the White House as they could, said Shanise Hamilton, 31. But they were going to stay only 20 or 30 minutes. She wanted to keep the children safe.
Where are the marches headed? ‘You’ll see when we get there.’
A crowd of about 100 protesters peeled away from the White House to march through residential neighborhoods north of downtown.
They chanted, “No justice, no peace!” and “Power to the people!” and knelt at intersections far from the centers of power that have been the sites of recent protests, urging joggers and people sunbathing in Logan Circle to “march with us!”
Although few joined in, many drivers honked their support, and one man making a delivery on a bicycle raised a fist in solidarity.
The man leading the protesters wouldn’t say where the march was headed. “You’ll see when we get there,” he said.
Photos: Washington prepares for a day of demonstrations
As crowds began to gather Saturday in Washington, protesters and authorities expect it to be a big day for demonstrations about police brutality stemming from the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Here are images from the city Saturday morning.
After taking a knee for eight minutes, protesters march along K Street
Taking a knee at 13 and K pic.twitter.com/L2Op0hkMty
— Justin Wm. Moyer (@justinwmmoyer) June 6, 2020
At about 10 a.m., dozens of protesters gathered at 16th and I streets NW in front of the White House.
The barrier erected days ago north of Lafayette Square remained, and those gathered — some pushing strollers, most wearing masks — were subdued. Before noon on what was expected to be a warm day in Washington, a speaker with a megaphone urged the crowd to take a knee in the intersection for eight minutes.
“If you can’t take a knee, respect the silence,” he said. The crowd knelt. The only sounds were the chirping of birds, the clicking of news media cameras and the blast of a boombox a few blocks north, where crowds were gathering at what was renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza a day earlier.
“My knee hurts,” the man said after about two minutes of kneeling. The crowd laughed.
As protesters marched north on 16th Street NW, a man with a guitar played “Lean on Me.” There were no phalanxes of D.C. police and other law-enforcement personnel that had been seen in recent days.
Savonnie Hawkins marched east on K Street with his 3-year-old daughter, Nyeisha. He said he was marching to bring attention to police brutality. "It’s the duty of every black person to be here,” he said. “It’s the duty of every person to be here.”
Vehicles prohibited on downtown streets Saturday for protests
D.C. police began prohibiting vehicle traffic in much of downtown Washington today, starting at 6 a.m., in preparation for thousands of protesters expected to descend on the area.
The north-south closure is roughly between L Street NW and Independence Avenue SW. The west boundary is along 19th Street NW, while the eastern boundary is roughly 9th Street NW downtown and Third Street NW along the Mall.
After week of protest, Saturday expected to bring largest crowds yet to Washington
Unlike many other large-scale demonstrations that the District hosts, no one person or organization is leading Saturday’s events.
Nearly a dozen different demonstrations run by as many organizations or individuals have been advertised for Saturday, starting at 6 a.m. and running into the night. Many protesters plan to stay out until the early hours of Sunday morning.
There are no leaders to speak to and no agenda to follow.
Stages and podiums that are hallmarks of rallies such as the March for Our Lives and the Women’s March on Washington have given way to people with megaphones commanding the attention of nearby crowds.
For the past eight days, the protests have ebbed and flowed with the energy of the day. Demonstrators march from memorials to the White House and back again.
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Barr seeks to dissociate himself from move on demonstrators outside Lafayette Square
Attorney General William P. Barr sought to dissociate himself Friday from police’s move earlier this week to push back a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators using horses and gas, claiming that he did not give the “tactical” order for law enforcement on the scene to move in.
The Associated Press reported that Barr told the news organization that the move against the protesters — which has been widely condemned — was already in process when he was spotted at the scene near the White House early Monday evening conferring with law enforcement on the ground.
“I’m not involved in giving tactical commands like that,” Barr told the Associated Press. “I was frustrated and I was also worried that as the crowd grew, it was going to be harder and harder to do. So my attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it.’ ”
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Barr personally ordered the crowd of protesters be pushed back as part of a plan hatched far earlier in the day. According to a Justice Department official, law enforcement authorities, including Barr, had decided to extend the security perimeter outside the White House after earlier demonstrations over the death of George Floyd at police hands in Minneapolis turned violent. When Barr came to the scene Monday afternoon, the official said, he was “surprised” to see that hadn’t been done.
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