May 29 and
U Street NW on May 29 The
White House was on
lockdown the night of May 29 in response to protests reaching the gates. The protests began at 7:00p.m. By 8:30p.m., the White House lockdown was lifted as demonstrators began to leave. At 10:00p.m., the protesters returned; however, by 3:30 am Saturday, they were more subdued. The protesters came into conflict with the
United States Secret Service. At one point the protesters were pepper sprayed. Protesters reportedly threw "rocks, urine and alcohol" at Secret Service agents injuring over 60 of them, including 11 hospitalized and treated for non-life-threatening injuries. As a result of the protests, the Secret Service rushed President
Donald Trump to shelter in the White House underground
bunker, where he remained for almost one hour. This occurred after some protesters crossed temporary barricades set up near the Treasury Department buildings. Around that time, the Secret Service alert level was raised to "red". The president's
wife and son were also brought to the bunker. Attorney General William Barr later stated that the May 29 protests "were so bad that the Secret Service recommended that the President go down to the bunker". Trump responded to the White House protesters on Twitter, saying that if they had crossed the White House fence they would have been attacked by "the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons". He also stated that "many Secret Service agents [are] just waiting for action", and accused the protesters of being "professionally organized". The Secret Service reported that six people were arrested in
Lafayette Square within
President's Park, directly north of the
White House. The
Metropolitan Police Department and
US Park Police were also on the scene.
May 30 Protesters gathered around the White House again on May 30. Police vehicles were damaged with one protester graffitiing words disparaging the President. Monuments on the
National Mall including the
Lincoln Memorial and
National World War II Memorial were defaced.
May 31 On May 31, dozens of businesses in
CityCenter,
Georgetown, and
Farragut Square were looted. Washington Mayor
Muriel Bowser ordered an 11 p.m. curfew. Before the curfew went into place multiple arsons occurred including attacks at St. Johns Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square and at the AFL CIO office building. A
BBC cameraman, Peter Murtaugh, was purposely attacked by police outside the White House. Murtaugh filmed a line of police officers charging without warning, whereby a shield-wielding officer tackled Murtaugh to the ground. A fellow BBC journalist said the attack had occurred before a curfew was imposed.
June 1 held a bible in front of
St. John's Episcopal ChurchIn response to violent protests, riots, and arson, Mayor Bowser announced a citywide curfew from 7pm to 6am, which remained in effect through June 3. An additional curfew from 11pm to 6am was added for the night of June 3. Law enforcement officers used
tear gas and other
riot control tactics to forcefully clear protesters from
Lafayette Square and surrounding streets. Minutes later, President
Donald Trump and senior administration officials walked from the
White House to
St. John's Episcopal Church. Trump held up a
Bible and posed for a
photo op in front of
Ashburton House (the church's
parish house), which had been
damaged by a fire during riots the night before. The clearing of demonstrators from Lafayette Square was widely condemned as excessive and an affront to the
First Amendment right to
freedom of assembly. Local resident Rahul Dubey, was widely praised by protesters after he allowed over seventy of them to spend the night in his
row home after being boxed in by police officers. At least one of the protesters inside the home live streamed the incident and the interactions between the police and Dubey after the police refused to leave from his doorstep, and created a large social media following of the story.
June 2 On Tuesday, up to 2,000 people demonstrated, the largest crowd up to that date. Senator
Elizabeth Warren and her husband
Bruce H. Mann spoke with protesters. The protests centered on Lafayette Square in front of the White House, and also included a march to the
Capitol Building. The President and First Lady visited
Saint John Paul II National Shrine during the day, drawing the condemnation of Archbishop
Wilton Daniel Gregory, the head of the
Archdiocese of Washington, as well as a crowd of two hundred peaceful protesters nearby. Overall, federal law enforcement presence was notably increased, which Mayor Muriel Bowser said was not the result of a request by the city.
June 3 on June 3 Over 5,000 were estimated to have taken part in peaceful demonstrations across the city, including those well past curfew into Thursday morning. No arrests were made, and no confrontations with police or damage to police property occurred. Barr announced that he would "flood the zone" in D.C. by bringing in law enforcement agents from multiple federal agencies. Barr himself was supervising the operation from an FBI command center in Washington's Chinatown. The deployment involved at least 5,800 troops, agents, and officers including personnel from the National Guard, US Secret Service, US Park Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, US Marshals Service, Bureau of Prisons, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Protective Service and the Transportation Security Administration. The heavily armed officers wore uniforms with no name badges and no insignia to show what agency they worked for, and they refused to answer questions.
June 4 Thursday was the first day the municipal government did not impose a curfew since Sunday. Protests on June 4 were peaceful and D.C. police did not make a single arrest. During the day, several hundred protesters gathered peacefully, kneeling with
raised fists at the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial, which in previous days had been blocked off by National Guard soldiers. Around 8pm, 168
U.S. Marshals Service members, 160
Drug Enforcement Administration employees, 80
U.S. Park Police and 32
FBI agents were deployed in Washington, D.C. 1,704 active-duty
Army troops were stationed at
Andrews Air Force Base,
Fort Belvoir and
Fort Myer.
June 5 " painted on
16th Street NW on June 5 On June 5
muralists painted the words "
Black Lives Matter" in 35-foot letters on
16th Street NW leading up to the White House and Lafayette Square with the assistance of the city government, which gave the section of the street the honorary name
Black Lives Matter Plaza. Mayor Bowser asked Trump to "withdraw all extraordinary law enforcement and military presence from Washington, D.C.", noting that protests the night before had been peaceful and she has ended the protest-related state of emergency in the city.
June 6 Demonstrations on Saturday featured over 10,000 people, the most of any in the city up to that point. Among the protesters that day were Senators Mitt Romney, Elizabeth Warren, and Representative John Lewis. The largest were centered around the White House, as in previous days, specifically several blocks running up to it on 16th Street. Other gatherings occurred intermittently at various locations, including 14th &
U Street,
Meridian Hill Park, the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol Building, Chinatown, and Thomas Circle. Some of these marches subsequently converged on 16th Street. Some individuals spray-painted "Defund the Police" on the street where "Black Lives Matter" had been painted earlier the previous day, in a move intended to criticize Mayor Bowser, who also spoke at the protests near the White House.
June 7 Protests continued on Sunday June 7. Protests at the new Black Lives Matter Plaza on 16th Street in front of the White House remained peaceful in the evening. The atmosphere of the protests was described in media as less tense than in previous days. In a tweet, Trump said he had ordered the National Guard to withdraw. The statue was removed the following day by the
National Park Service (NPS). In response to the Pike statue being toppled, Trump tweeted: "The D.C. police are not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down & burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country!" Because the memorial is in a federal park, it is under jurisdiction of the NPS and U.S. Park Police, not the local police. Several days later, the
United States Department of Justice (DOJ) charged four men with destruction of federal property for allegedly trying to bring down the statue. The Justice Department alleged that a video showed one of the men breaking off and destroying the wheels of the cannons located at the base of the statue as well as pulling on ropes when trying to bring down the statue. Soon afterwards, the DOJ announced the arrest and charging of a man who was not only allegedly seen on video climbing up onto the Jackson statue and affixing a rope that was then used to try to pull the statue down, but also had on June 20 helped destroy
Gaetano Trentanove's 1901
Albert Pike Memorial statue near Washington's
Judiciary Square by pulling it from its base and setting it on fire. The DOJ's complaint alleged that the man had been captured on video dousing the federally-owned Pike statue with a flammable liquid, igniting it as it lay on the ground and using the fire to light a cigarette. == Prominent protesters ==