I’m back out tonight covering the #GeorgeFloydProtests in DC tonight with @ellievhall. A huge group of protesters are marching peacefully toward the Capitol as we head toward the White House. 
The crowd is as far as I can see down Pennsylvania #DCProtests
National Guard outside the archives, plus lots of SORT (Special Operations Response Team) officers near DOJ. Almost every business downtown is boarded up.
The crowd here is huge today. These gates as new as of last night, and makes photos hard, but the police in the park are more than I’ve seen so far.
Elizabeth Warren, her husband, and her dog Bailey are here (headed out as people noticed them). A reporter asked her about last night and I couldn’t hear her her response. The crowd noticed her and started to gather.
This will not shock Capitol Hill reporters but she brushed off any reporter questions. The more things change, the more they stay the same. A protester with a bullhorn turned toward law enforcement and said, “Are you going to mace her?”
For a minute, some protesters were shaking the fence and had it really moving. They’ve stopped but it’s moving a little. Crowd is chanting “Justice now.”
The crowd outside the White House just took a knee for a moment and then stood up, hands in the air. They’ve started a “say his name/George Floyd” chant. This crowd is huge.
The crowd at the front of the protest is really rocking the fence. I didn’t see it in the moment but someone else here said they saw one water bottle thrown over the fence.
Curfew starts in about 15 minutes. There are so, so many people here filling H between 15th and 17th, and up 16th to almost J. #DCProtests
The mood here is intense but calm. Protesters almost entirely in masks, holding signs and chanting. #DCProtests
Accidentally out of thread
At 7:00, as cerfew officially begins, much of the crowd outside the White House took a knee. #DCProtests
The big question for me tonight is how cops will enforce the curfew. Yesterday, the first day with a 7 pm curfew, they gassed the crowd around 6:30 for Trump’s photo op. The crowd again took a knee and chanted “peaceful protest” just now.
Hands up/don’t shoot chants. It’s been about 10 mins since curfew and this crowd outside the White House has not moved. #DCProtests #GeorgeFloydprotest
A man climbed up the traffic pole and ripped down the 16th St sign the crowd threw things at him and booed. This crowd really wants to keep things calm and peaceful (as they have been). #DCProtests
It is hard to convey the magnitude of this crowd. It is shoulder to shoulder between 15th and 16th and halfway to 17th, and quite far up 16th. Have started to hear helioctopers overhead. #DCProtests
The crowd, fists held high, just did a long “fuck the KKK/fuck Trump chant.” Now chanting George Floyd and Brionna Taylor’s names.
Things are still calm here and cops on the other side of the fence have not moved, as far as I can tell.
#DCPROTEST
Things are still calm here and cops on the other side of the fence have not moved, as far as I can tell.
#DCPROTEST
A chant leader asked people to hold their hands up for one full minute. It was quiet for a moment, then a loud “this is what democracy looks like” chant started and people clapped along, hands held high
The police have started to move up and there are reports that they’ve blocked Massachusetts Ave to the north of the protest. The helicopter is starting to circle. Seems like they might try to box in protesters and kettle them like they did last night. #DCProtests
About a half hour after curfew, your BFN correspondents have decided to put on our respirators just in case.
MPD has moved up, but most National Guard are still far back, some sitting on the grass. Some just pulled forward near center of crowd. We’re far off to the side, and pictures are impossible through the fence. #DCProtests
The crowd has started to move toward 14th street away from Lafayette. We’re staying back but plan to follow as much as we can. Curfew went into place about an hour ago. #DCProtests
The crowd stopped moving. May have hit a police line. Again, seems likely police will move in from all sides and kettle in protesters on all sides. We’re walking north and then will move parallel. I just asked a cop the best way out. She said east along I “but don’t go south.”
DHS, MPD, and ATF all lining Vermont and I. The crowd is marching back toward the Capitol, I believe, and things are very quiet here. #DCProtests
We’re looped back around to the Vermont and H Street intersection. It is quiet. There has been no disperse order. #DCProtests #GeorgeFloydProtests
The crowd has thinned at Lafayette. It sounds like a big group started marching toward the Capitol.
Military police has started to move and form a consistent line behind the barrier at Lafayette. I would say there’s about 50% fewer people here now, some shaking the fence. I can still smell the fire from the other night. #DCProtests
As I sent that, a few pulled back a couple feet so that the national Guard is in a straighter line. To the west of them, MPD are lined up.
National Guard has pulled back even further, some behind another barrier. The crowd is chanting “black lives matter.”
As a more general note: Today has felt so much more peaceful than the last few nights in DC. Cops have not engaged with protesters. Protesters came out in droves but booed any attempt at property destruction. It’s been a strong feeling of unity.
Still: we are 1 minute from sunset, the floodlights are now on in Lafayette, and there is still a big crowd here.
Asked a DHS officer on Vermont (which has the heaviest law enforcement presence around here) if they planned to kettle folks. He said they’re just there for that area (where the AFL-CIO building is, which was on fire two nights ago) and people going down H will not be stopped.
That is not, of course, exactly an answer to my “do you plan to kettle people” question. #DCProtests
Big group of National Guard just moved toward the area where (as far as I can tell) they could theoretically exist and come out from behind the fences. They’re stopped there for now. Another group moving in the opposite direction. #DCProtests
There has still been no official disperse order about an hour and 45 mins after curfew, but law enforcement is definitely moving, deeming like them might come out from behind the fence. #DCProtests
Low quality video but someone climbed the traffic pole right above the fence and protesters started throwing things at them to get them down. Guard put their shields up and MPD is moving up.
A woman near me is pissed at the people shaking the fence, throwing things, climbing the pole. “They already want to kill us, STOP,” she yelled. “There’s a lot of people here for the wrong reasons.”
#DCPROTEST
#DCPROTEST
What’s left of the crowd is centralized near the middle of the park alternating between some quiet and chanting “black life’s matter.” Law enforcement hasn’t moved again. #DCProtests
Just saw one water bottle go from the crowd over the fence. A woman immediately started walking toward whoever threw it and yelled “STOP THROWING SHIT.” The cops won’t make arrests if it’s peaceful, she said. “Look out for your community!”
Just a moment later, two other protesters noticed a man on top of the church and yelled for him to get down. It looked like he was just holding a camera but Ellie and I moved quickly. This crowd is on edge.
A “cops are not essential” chant has broken out in the crowd:
Another water bottle over the fence, which some people are shaking, as another person yelled for them to stop. We pulled out of the crowd. It’s been just over two hours since curfew called. Helicopter overhead. #DCProtests
The group that marched up to the Capitol has marched back and are rejoining protesters outside the White House. Several hundred people down H marching back toward the White House.
Not nearly as big as it was at the start of the night but there are probably a thousand people on H in front of Lafayette now. The helicopter that’s been circling seems to be getting a bit lower. There’s another much further up hovering.
Someone with a blow horn just called out that they had a lost phone, which was quickly retrieved, and the crowd cheered. I, again, smell weed.
Crowd got tense as cops moved forward with sheilds up, seemingly in response to nothing. No movement beyond that. No dispersement order yet, 2 hrs and 40 mins since curfew.
Some people were calling for the group to leave, saying they’d been boxed them in. But that doesn’t actually seem to be the case. Ellie and I are walking down H and there is no police line.
The crowd is definitely thinning out again.
A small group is trying to move the crowd away from Lafayette toward Connecticut, and most people are, but some people in the crowd think he’s an undercover cop and are calling for people to get back to the gate.
A lot of people started to leave, and a group started calling for them to come back, yelling that he was an undercover cop and handed someone to the police (I didn’t see that). Some people turned back but then a huge swarm of bike cops came around the corner.
We identified ourselves as press as one officer rode past us. There was a big group in the street half a block up from us on Connecticut and K and we asked who they were. The officer turned to us and said, “We’re going to lock them up.” #dcprotesters
No proof the man telling people to move out was an undercover cop BUT Ellie and I did not see any cops on H, and as soon as the group moved toward Connecticut, the cops started to form a kettle. #dcprorests
As we walked away, we saw four men walking up 16th toward the kettle in plainclothes and warned them they were kettling people. No reaction from them as they headed toward it. #dcprotests
Apologies, have misspelled some hashtags tonight. I’m not usually a hashtag gal but trying to keep up with them.
Ellie and I are pulling out. We don’t want to get caught in a kettle. Media is an exception to the curfew but if we get arrested, lawyers to bail us out are not. Here’s the line of police cars, lights on, no sirens, that moved toward that kettle right as started.
Another line of cars headed up 14th in the direction of kettle:
In that video you can see a flash go off, and we realized it was this thing, taking pictures of us as we filmed the cops. I used to work a block from here, and I never once saw this tower of cameras.
As for blocks as we pulled out there have been national guard and police vehicles every block, sometimes blocking the street, sometimes odd to the side. The streets are very, very empty.
I want to reiterate: This protest was completely peaceful, and as it started to disperse, police trapped protesters in.
As we walk back past city center and into Chinatown, there are police and National Guard on every corner and fully blocking some streets.
Anyway, I’m home safe. I hope you all are too.
