WEB DESK / agencies
People from different walks of life took to the streets of Washington Saturday in continuation of days of protests in the city and across the U.S. over the death of an Black African American man who died after being restrained by a white policeman.
The chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, Peter Newsham, said authorities “anticipate numbers that are larger than any of the numbers that we’ve seen to this point.”
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser sent a letter Thursday to President Donald Trump asking him to “withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from Washington, D.C.”
The Trump administration has deployed federal law enforcers and the National Guard to respond the protests in the city, triggering widespread criticism from city officials and activists that their actions are escalating tensions.
Mayor Bowser denounced federal law enforcement officials patrolling the streets and taking action without regard to “established chains of command.”
The Trump administration was widely criticized after federal authorities fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters Sunday outside the White House, so that Trump could walk to a nearby church and pose for photographs with a Bible in hand.
Protests in Washington have occurred every day since last Friday. Peaceful daytime demonstrations last Saturday and Sunday turned violent after nightfall with looting and other acts of violence.
