USA TODAY International Edition
‘Unite the Right 2’ came at big cost
DC hears criticism for spending estimated $2.6M to handle rally
WASHINGTON – At the “Unite the Right 2” anniversary rally Sunday, uniform lines of yellow-vested police officers were the main barrier between a handful of white nationalists and more than 1,000 counterprotesters.
From a safety standpoint, the day was a success, the Metropolitan Police Department said.
“Today was an example of a well-executed plan to safeguard people and property while allowing individuals to exercise their First Amendment rights,” said Peter Newsham, chief of police, at a news conference.
But flooding the nation’s capital with law enforcement was a massive security undertaking – and it cost the city $2.6 million, according to preliminary estimates from D.C. government officials. That has raised some eyebrows.
The policing effort ensured that the white nationalists and counterprotesters never directly encountered each other, Newsham said.
That was in stark contrast to the violence that exploded on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, at the first Unite the Right rally in 2017.
“It’s a major undertaking when you have events like this,” said Tod Burke, a retired criminal justice professor and former Maryland police officer. “They certainly did not want to be reactive – they wanted to be proactive, and they seemed to do that.”
Most of the money for such events typically goes toward “manpower,” Burke said: training and paying all the officers, some of whom may be working overtime or on their vacation. “I would think for an event like this, (the cost) would be expected.”
“How do you put a price tag on the First Amendment?” he said.
Some disagree that the millions of dollars amounted to money well spent. Makia Green, an organizer with Black Lives Matter D.C., said the permit application for the rally shouldn’t have been accepted in the first place – and the money spent on security could have gone to better use.
“The city needs to invest in community resources like having de-escalators and mental health responders,” she said. “$2.6 million could have solved a lot of issues that D.C. was having, but instead, it was used to protect white supremacists.”
The security costs fell predominantly upon the Metropolitan Police Department and will be charged to the District of Columbia’s federally funded Emergency Planning and Security Fund.
Some policing tactics came under fire after the rally.
Despite the city’s promise that white nationalists would not be accommodated in separate train cars during their journey from Vienna Metro Station to Lafayette Square, one end of the train they took contained only police, protesters and media.
The transit union representing the majority of Metro employees, as well as two D.C. Council members, sharply criticized the move.
Later in the day, police clashed with counterprotesters on city streets, dispersing them with pepper spray.
Burke speculated that because the group of white nationalists was small and well-protected, police became the primary target of some counterprotesters’ frustration. After the white nationalists left, counterprotesters began a heated march through downtown, chanting anti-police slogans.
“What happens is the anger shifts,” Burke said. “It shifts from the people you should be angry at to law enforcement – the people who are there to provide you a voice.”
Andrew Batcher, an organizer of the counterprotest who participated in the march, said the harsh tactics were unnecessary. “There was nothing that anyone was doing that was illegal.”
Burke said that police, in difficult situations, struggle to balance their duties with the way they could be perceived by the public.
“Don’t take this out on the police, they’re just doing their job,” Burke said. “But I can understand the frustration on both sides.”