Members of the U.S. Secret Service stand near Lafayette Park across from the White House, Tuesday, June 2, 2020, in Washington, following protests over the death of George Floyd.

Patrick Semansky / AP Photo

This story was last updated at 2:57 p.m. on June 2.

After a night of dramatic confrontations between law enforcement and demonstrators, D.C. officials are preparing for a fifth evening of protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham said officials were tracking social media for an indication of tonight’s events, but added, “There is a strong likelihood we will have protesters down by the White House.”

Organizers of #ShutDownDC announced a demonstration at 5 p.m. tonight at Lafayette Square “or as close to there as you can get.” A group of about 50 protesters have begun marching on 15th Street NW near Lafayette Park just before 1 p.m., according to journalist Tom Sherwood. 

Meanwhile, the Secret Service has closed D.C.-owned streets around the White House, where the protest has focused over the past few nights. D.C. National Guard vehicles and personnel are stationed nearby on 14th Street near the Ronald Reagan Building, Sherwood reported.

D.C. is under a second day of a 7 p.m. curfew on Tuesday, which lasts until 6 a.m. Wednesday. Metro also announced that it will suspend rail service at 8 p.m. and bus service at 9 p.m. in accordance with the District’s curfew. Curfew violation was the main charge for the vast majority of arrests overnight, Newsham said.

A group of about 200 protesters has already assembled on Tuesday at St. John Paul II National Shrine in Northeast D.C., where Trump was set to visit with First Lady Melania Trump. They stood for photos in front of the shrine, which is run by the Catholic men’s organization the Knights of Columbus.

Many of the demonstrators were local to the Brookland neighborhood where the shrine is located. Cosby Hunt gathered with family and friends to protest the president’s visit. “If this fraud is going to come to our neighborhood, then we’re going to have to greet him appropriately,” Hunt says. As an attendee of an Episcopal Church, Hunt says he was “outraged” about the president’s photo opportunity in front of St. John’s downtown. “There’s no basement for this guy.”

Earlier in the day, Archbishop of the Catholic Diocese of D.C. condemned Trump’s visit as “reprehensible,” saying that the shrine was “misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people.”

Rev Dr. Kevin Carlin Kennedy, a pastor at at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in Petworth who was also present at the demonstrations, agreed. “As a Catholic priest, obviously, I’m insulted he would use a Catholic institution as a photo opportunity for his own self-promotion,” Kennedy tells DCist/WAMU.

About 200 protesters gathered in Brookland on Tuesday during President Donald Trump's visit to a Catholic shrine.Mikaela Lefrak / DCist/WAMU
Father Kevin Kennedy, a pastor at Saint Gabriel Catholic Church in Northwest D.C., said he was "personally insulted" by Trump's visit to the John Paul II National Shrine on Tuesday.Mikaela Lefrak / WAMU
"I just felt like my presence here might remind some people what Christian faith is supposed to tell us about violence and about being on the side of the oppressed," says Sister Quincy Howard.Mikaela Lefrak / WAMU

Elsewhere in the region, a group of protesters estimated to be in the hundreds was gathered this afternoon at the Connie Morella Library in Bethesda in support of Black Lives Matter.

MPD arrested more than 300 people over the course of Monday evening, Newsham said Tuesday. That included 54 arrests at around 7:30 p.m. Monday at 16th and I streets NW and 194 arrests at 14th and Swann streets NW. Arrests were primarily for curfew violations, per Newsham, with others for burglary and rioting. That’s more than triple the arrests from previous nights of demonstrations—18 were arrested after Saturday’s protests and 88 following Sunday’s events.

On Monday afternoon, peaceful demonstrators on the border of Lafayette Park, just outside the White House, were met with officers from a range of local and federal agencies—among them D.C. Police, Arlington Police, U.S. Secret Service, National Guard, and DEA officers. Ahead of President Donald Trump’s 5 p.m. statement at the White House, and another photo op at nearby St. John’s Church shortly afterward, military officers cleared a large swath of the park by firing tear gas.

Into the evening, the heavy police presence continued, and protestors were met with military helicopters that flew low enough to the ground to snap trees near Capital One Arena. President Trump drew national criticism for calling in federal forces—reportedly going so far as ordering in military police from North Carolina, which would require the invoking of an 1807 law called the Insurrection Act. Following Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 7 p.m. curfew, dozens of protestors were trapped in a Dupont house, where a resident offered shelter until the curfew was lifted. Officers surrounded the block and the protestors left in the morning with no arrests.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Trump echoed that there were “many arrests” overnight. “D.C. had no problems last night,” he wrote. “Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination.”

Newsham and Bowser said Tuesday that federal forces were responsible for directing some parts of last night’s response, including a helicopter that hovered over protesters near Gallery Place. “That decision was made by a federal agency. I don’t know if it was helpful,” Newsham said.

Bowser, who called the president’s dispersal of protesters in Lafayette Square before the curfew went into effect “shameful” on Twitter, added Tuesday, “I don’t think the military should be used on the streets of American cities against American citizens, and I definitely don’t think it should be done for show.”

U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr, who appeared on D.C.’s streets on Monday night to survey law enforcement response, called the events “a more peaceful night” in the city, in a statement released Tuesday. He praised MPD and Newsham, writing “The District is well served by this exceptional police force.” He also promised, “there will be even greater law enforcement resources and support in the region tonight.”

Barr personally ordered law enforcement officials to clear peaceful protesters from the perimeter around Lafayette Square just before Trump spoke yesterday, according to reporting from The Washington Post. DCist/WAMU has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Meanwhile, voters go to the polls Tuesday in D.C.’s primary election. Polls are open until 8 p.m., and according to Bowser, voters will be considered essential and exempt from tonight’s 7 p.m. curfew. Though officials urged citizens to vote by mail in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, some were saying as recently as Friday that they had not yet received ballots.

“They have 22 voting locations … polls open until 8 pm,” Bowser said Tuesday. “You won’t have any problem going to vote in the District of Columbia through 8 p.m. today.”

Still, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the committee that oversees the D.C. Board of Elections, expressed concern that the curfew would “keep people that need to get to the Voting Centers from exercising their rights.” More than a dozen Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners have called on the mayor to push the start of the curfew to 8:30 p.m. to avoid stifling turnout.

And at least two other D.C. lawmakers—At-large Councilmembers David Grosso and Robert White—have both called on the mayor to rescind Tuesday’s curfew entirely.

“We found about the curfew along with everybody else yesterday and I thought it was highly inappropriate to suppress the free speech of what are overwhelmingly peaceful protesters speaking out in pain,” White tells DCist. “Last night it became very clear that people who are taking this opportunity to loot and cause damage are going to do that regardless. The only people the curfew is stifling are the people trying to exercise their rights to protest.”

He says that he reached out to the mayor’s office and “expressed my belief and there was a difference of opinion.”

Newsham said at Tuesday’s press conference that he was “proud” of Bowser for her decision to move forward with the curfew, saying she “chose public safety … over some inconvenience to folks.”

But White characterizes it differently. “The District has not done enough to assure residents that we, their local government, are here to protect their rights any more than the federal government has,” he says. “If ever it is asked, if we took more aggressive action against people damaging property than people who did harm to peaceful protesters, I don’t want it ever to be said that I stood on the side of buildings instead of people.”

Meanwhile, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen and At-Large Councilmemeber Elissa Silverman each announced Tuesday that they will be at the city’s independent Office of Police Complaints tonight to observe local law enforcement.

In neighborhoods around D.C., storefront windows were boarded up on Tuesday morning. As construction continues on new buildings in Shaw, workers were adding plywood to newly installed windows.

Filed Under: George Floyd,