NEW YORK (Dagbladet): On June 1 last year, police cleared Lafayette Square outside the White House for protesters with pepper pellets, tear gas and smoke bombs.
The protesters were part of the violent reaction across the United States after George Floyd was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis on May 25 last year.
– Humiliated and dangerous
Shortly after the protesters were removed, then-US President Donald Trump marched out with his Attorney General William Barr, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and spokesman Kayleigh McEnany across Lafayette Square to St. John’s Episcopal Church. There, Trump held up a Bible while he was being photographed.
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Rejected
Since then, many American media have reported that the area was cleared of protesters because Donald Trump was to conduct a photo session with the Bible.
Revealed by recording
But in a fresh audit report The inspector general of the Interior Ministry said that the police outside the White House did not know about Trump’s plan, and that in any case the plan was to move the protesters one block further away from the White House.
Before Trump himself came out, Barr was out talking to the police. He is said to have urged police to move protesters because of Trump, but was turned down by police, according to the report.
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It also mentions a rather remarkable exchange of words between Barr and the policeman who had the command on the spot.
– Will these people still be here when the president comes out? asked Trump’s Attorney General.
– Are you fucking with me? replied the policeman, who was not aware that Trump was coming out.
Then the policeman bowed his head in shame and walked away, the report says, according to AP.
Trump sting after Biden meeting
Plan before Trump
“The park police had already planned to clear the area and had begun to implement an operation plan several hours before they learned of a potential presidential visit to the park,” Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt said in a press release.
According to the report, the decision to remove the protesters was justified, but the various police authorities in the area failed to communicate effectively with each other, and they failed to communicate warnings to the protesters that they would clear the area.
Several police departments began to press the protesters before the protesters had been adequately warned.
Emails reveal desperation
The brutal confrontation and photo session at the church came after several days of heightened tension and some violent clashes and vandalism in Washington DC. Many protesters gathered around the White House, and the vast majority were peaceful.
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Used tear gas
Trump then claimed that the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, was unable to maintain law and order, and that he therefore called for his own security response.
According to the report, a contingent from the Bureau of Prisons arrived at the site late June 1. They did not receive a full briefing and fired pepper pellets at the protesters, contrary to the instructions of the police officer from the park police, who had command on the spot.
The report also points out that the park police and the Secret Service, the police department responsible for the president’s security, did not share a radio channel to communicate.
– Weaknesses in communication and coordination may have contributed to confusion during the operation, the inspector general writes.
He has also tried to find out one of the big questions related to the incident: Who in the police used tear gas to remove peaceful protesters? According to the report, it was police officers from the city police, who were stationed a block away.
– President again in August
Black Lives Matter Plaza
The police received massive criticism for being too brutal and confrontational during the incident. Among other things, they started clearing the area before 7 pm, which was the time when a curfew was introduced.
According to the report, the park police thought the curfew was irrelevant.
– We do not enforce the rapporteur’s curfew. We are a federal entity. We do not work directly for the mayor, says a police chief in the park police, according to the report.
Since then, the square outside the church where Trump stood with the Bible has been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza and Black Lives Matter is written in giant yellow letters on the street.
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