Protesters converge on White House for second straight day
Shouting “Black Lives Matter” and “I can’t breathe,” hundreds of people converged on the White House for a second straight day Saturday to protest the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and President Donald Trump’s response.
Trump, who earlier belittled the protesters, pledged to “stop mob violence.”
“I stand before you as a friend and ally to every American seeking justice and peace, and I stand before you in firm opposition to anyone exploiting this tragedy to loot, rob, attack and menace,” the president said in Florida after watching the launch of a Spacex rocket. “Healing, not hatred, justice, not chaos are the missions at hand.” Across from the White House, police lined up in front of the protesters, forming a human barricade as Trump returned to the White House from his Florida trip.
Protesters chanted and taunted the police. Witnesses said there were multiple incidents of protesters pushing against the barricades and being repelled with pepper spray.
“We’re sick of it. The cops are out of control,” protester Olga Hall said.
Earlier, speaking over a megaphone, Cameron Mccall said, “We don’t need violence. All we need are our voices.”
While some protesters stayed near the White House, others marched through the streets chanting, “No justice and no peace.” and “Say his name: George Floyd.” The mood was angry but decidedly non-violent with several speakers imploring marchers to remain peaceful.
Earlier, though, there were skirmishes between protesters and Secret Service officers on the edge of Lafayette Square, according to a reporter for radio station WTOP. Pepper spray was used to disperse one group of protesters, the station reported.
At multiple stops along the march, protesters verbally abused lines of uniformed police officers with riot shields.
In a series of tweets earlier Saturday, Trump doubted their allegiance to Floyd’s memory, saying they were “professionally managed.” He offered no evidence to back his assertion, and the president even seemed to invite supporters to make their presence felt: “Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???”
Trump later rejected the suggestion that he was stoking a potential conflict between protesters and his supporters. “I was just asking. But I have no idea if they are going to be here,” he said. “MAGA is Make America Great Again. By the way, they love African American people. They love black people.”
At Saturday’s demonstration, there was no evidence of a counter-move by Trump supporters.
Trump said he had “watched every move” from inside the executive mansion during Friday’s protest and “couldn’t have felt more safe” as the Secret Service let the protesters carry on, “but whenever someone ... got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on then, hard — didn’t know what hit them.” The president also criticized the mayors of Washington and Minneapolis. Trump said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey “is probably a very good person, but he’s a radical, left mayor.” He then described how he watched as a police station in the city was overrun. “For that police station to be abandoned and taken over, I’ve never seen anything so horrible and stupid in my life,” Trump said when speaking briefly to reporters at the White House. He said Minnesota officials have to get tougher with rioters, and that by doing so they would be honoring the memory of Floyd. Floyd is the black man who was being held in handcuffs when he died Monday in Minneapolis after a police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after Floyd stopped moving and pleading for air. Protests have erupted in U.S. cities in the days since. As he tweeted, Trump claimed that many Secret Service agents were “just waiting for action” and ready to unleash “the most vicious dogs, and the most ominous weapons, I have ever seen.” His reference to “vicious dogs” potentially being sicced on protesters revisits images from the civil rights movement when marchers faced snarling police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses.