This post was last updated at 1:57 a.m. on June 5.

It was the first night since Saturday without a curfew, but some protests in D.C. tapered off early Thursday as a thunderstorm swept over the area.

But the weather didn’t send everyone home.

A couple hundred people, some in rain ponchos, remained outside Lafayette Square after the downpour. They clapped and chanted, “This is what democracy looks like.” Demonstrators pressed against a fence recently placed around Lafayette Square, protesting police brutality and racism, and shouting at police who were barely visible in the distance. They were joined by a group of marchers who, at one point, chanted “We can do this all night.”

Even before the storm, the scene was quieter and less tense near the White House than it was earlier in the week. A band with a tuba player played across the street from the boarded-up office of the AFL-CIO, where the lobby was set on fire Sunday night.

And there were fewer law enforcement officers in the streets than earlier in the week.

Attorney General William Barr said Thursday he may remove some officers from the 15 federal agencies that were sent to respond to protests in the District. Some active-duty troops who were deployed to military bases in the region were sent home.

“We want troops from out of state, out of Washington, D.C., ” Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a Thursday press conference.

Attallah Hampton attended the protest near the White House with two of her sons, Andre, 8, and Austen, 4. She said she wanted her sons to witness the show of support for black people.

“I want them to know they matter,” she said. “I want them to grow up in a world where they’re not going to be judged by the way they look.”

Hampton said she did not plan on protesting, but her sons insisted. The family drove from Upper Marlboro to attend the demonstration. Andre carried a sign that read, “I matter.”

“I like to be with black people,” Andre said. “And I want to stay alive.”

The front of the White House has been a focal point for demonstrations in recent days. But, on Thursday night, hundreds of people also assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial. National Guard troops who were stationed on the monument steps earlier in the week were gone.

Demonstrators spilled from those steps to the National Mall until around 8 p.m., when rain and lightning dispersed some demonstrators. But others remained. At one point, a group of protesters visited the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, where they listened to the civil rights leader’s “I have a dream” speech over a loudspeaker.

The night of relative calm followed a drop in the number of arrests from a peak on Monday, when 289 people were arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department. No arrests were made Wednesday. On Thursday, D.C. police reported no arrests as of 9:30 p.m. D.C. Fire and EMS responded to six heat-related calls. Most people arrested earlier this week were charged with violating curfew, as well as rioting and looting.

A spokesman for D.C. Fire and EMS said they received a call shortly after midnight about two military personnel, possibly members of the National Guard, who “felt the effects” of a lightning strike on the outskirts of Lafayette Square. They were transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The national calls for police reform will reach the D.C. Council next week, when members are expected to vote on emergency legislation that would make sweeping changes to law enforcement rules and oversight. The proposal includes banning chokeholds and releasing body camera footage faster. Another measure would block police from using tear gas to disperse protesters.

Federal law enforcement officers’ use of tear gas also prompted a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and other federal officials, brought by Black Lives Matter D.C., among others.

While crowds on Thursday were smaller than earlier in the week, protests are expected to continue downtown.

The Secret Service said it will keep a fence around Lafayette Square for at least six more days, in anticipation of more protests. D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said officials expect the largest turnout yet on Saturday.

Imran Sherefa, a 20-year-old from Silver Spring, handed out water and masks from under a tent near the White House Thursday night. Sherefa’s voice was hoarse from chanting at protests all week; he hasn’t missed a demonstration yet.

He said he wants Derek Chauvin, the officer who put his knee on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, charged with first-degree murder. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder.

Sherefa immigrated from Ethiopia eight years ago and said the United States has not lived up to the ideals he saw portrayed in movies and media. He said he has been stopped by police several times since moving to the country, without reason.

“I’m prepared to be here as long as it takes,” he said. “We don’t talk about racism enough.”