Protesters try to topple statue outside White House

A crowd of protesters tried to topple the statue of a former US president near the White House Monday evening as police responded with pepper spray to break up new demonstrations that erupted in Washington DC.

A wave of nationwide rallies calling for racial justice has swept the US since the May 25 death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

On Monday, hundreds of protesters were pushed back by at least 100 security force personnel after they had thrown ropes around the statue of Andrew Jackson, the divisive seventh US president, in Lafayette Square park.

The word “killer” had been spray-painted on the stone plinth, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.

Jackson, in office from 1829 to 1837, owned more than 500 slaves over his life and was a key figure in the forced relocation of nearly 100,000 Native Americans, otherwise known as the Trail of Tears.

“The police attacked us. They’ve taken the law to their own hands,” Raymond Spaine, a 52-year-old black man, told AFP.

A helicopter circled over the gathering of hundreds of people on the newly renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, as officers continued to use pepper spray to disperse the protesters.

US President Donald Trump criticized the protesters, tweeting: “Numerous people arrested in DC for the disgraceful vandalism in Lafayette Park, of the magnificent Statue of Andrew Jackson, in addition to the exterior defacing of St John’s Church across the street.”