D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser made international headlines and inspired numerous copycats when she granted permission for a giant “Black Lives Matter” mural in front of the White House.

But for protesters staging a 36-hour sit-in outside the Wilson Building this week, the gesture fell short.

“Spraying ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the street is not good enough,” said Arianna Evans, one of the people organizing the protest encampment. “We will not accept that. We will not be placated. We will not do half measures.”

While the D.C. Council held a virtual hearing on the Metropolitan Police Department budget on Monday morning, about 40 protesters set up a couple dozen tents outside the empty Wilson Building, where the council normally conducts its affairs. Many of those gathered were not able to testify before the council. (500 people signed up to testify, but there was only time for 90 of them.) So protesters held an impromptu hearing of their own.

At the official hearing, nearly everyone testifying called on city leaders to reject Bowser’s proposal to raise the MPD budget by more than 3%, to $580 million, and instead defund MPD. Protesters also want to defund MPD, and use the hundreds of millions of dollars for other services.

“MPD is extremely aggressive, especially in the lower-income wards, versus how Georgetown residents are treated, for example,” said Evans, who is part of the group FreedomFightersDC, which organized the sit-in.

At Freedom Plaza, protesters told their own stories of witnessing racism and police brutality in D.C. and elsewhere. Taylor Smith described how a few weeks ago her 12-year-old brother had the police called on him in Ashburn, Va., where he lives.

“Just for going outside and playing with some of his other friends in a neighborhood that was adjacent to his,” Smith said. “A 50-year-old lady called the cops and she said, ‘There’s a young man in my neighborhood, I don’t think he lives here, can you come and investigate?'”

Smith says the police responded to the call, interrogated her brother, who is black, and told him to go home. None of his non-black friends were questioned, Smith said.

“People think racism doesn’t exist,” she said. “It’s very ingrained into society so unless your eyes are wide open or you’re experiencing it, you might not see it.”

It was an unseasonably cool night on Monday as protesters camped in front of the Wilson Building. They watched movies, played games, and tried to stay warm. Many, including Smith, were new to the movement. She said she was galvanized by seeing the video of George Floyd’s killing on TV.

“It was honestly such a visceral reaction, I couldn’t hold back the tears,” she said. “It felt like the epitome of what our people have been going through for like 400-plus years. It was just blatantly, blatantly, blatantly, blatantly unfair.”

As protesters milled about this morning, waking up, Stormy Hill passed through the plaza on her way to work. She stopped one of the campers to ask what they were doing.

“So we’re trying to defund the police,” Francesca Faccone told her.

“Why?” asked Hill, skeptical. “They need jobs, too.”

“They can find other jobs,” Faccone responded.

“But they got families,” said Hill. “I’m confused.”

“The system, the system, is not good,” insisted Faccone.

“I get that part,” said Hill. Then she pointed toward the White House, about a block away. “I think all this is his fault. Y’all need to go protest over there.”

Some protesters called for diverting part of the police budget to address the causes of crime and violence.

“It needs to be redirected into the communities that are just so riddled with poverty and so riddled with housing and food insecurity, to where they have to do crimes such as stealing to survive,” said organizer Kerrigan Williams. “Why not put that money for MPD that you’re trying to increase to different resources that can ultimately blossom into crime prevention tactics?”

Protestors originally planned to stay put in Freedom Plaza until 9 p.m. Tuesday, but announced on Tuesday that they plan to stay put until Monday morning.

Mayor Bowser has defended her police budget proposal and said she would not reconsider it in light of protests.

“My budget doesn’t fund it a penny more than we need and certainly not a penny less,” she told NPR last week.