B4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, JULY 28 , 2020
charge what I later learned to be
‘pepper balls’ into the crowd, as
demonstrators continued to re-
treat.”
The protesters were pushed a
block away from Lafayette
Square. At 7:05 p.m., DeMarco
said, he watched Trump walking
onto H Street. “The president’s
arrival was a complete surprise,”
DeMarco said, “as we had not
been briefed that he would enter
our sector.”
“As for the new security bar-
rier,” DeMarco continued, “whose
installation was the stated pur-
pose of the clearing operation, the
materials to erect it did not arrive
on the scene until around 9 p.m.,
and it was not completed until
later that night.” This required the
local and federal police to main-
tain a human barricade for hours
until the fence was built.
DeMarco, 34, is a U.S. Military
Academy graduate and a veteran
of three overseas deployments, in-
cluding a combat tour in Iraq. In
2018, he ran in the Democratic
primary for Congress against Rep.
John Sarbanes (Md.) and was
strongly critical of Trump. He now
works as an associate for Booz
Allen Hamilton at the Defense
Intelligence Agency, according to
his LinkedIn profile.
DeMarco said he was coming
forward “to help ensure that there
is a fair factual record of what
happened at Lafayette Square,
based on what I saw and experi-
enced first-hand.” He said that,
having served in a combat zone
and having experience in assess-
ing threats, “at no time did I feel
threatened by the protestors or
assess them to be violent.... From
my observation, these demonstra-
tors — our fellow American citi-
zens — were engaged in the peace-
ful expression of their First
Amendment rights. Yet they were
subjected to an unprovoked esca-
lation and excessive use of force.”
[email protected]
[email protected]satisfied that law enforcement
could handle the protest.
“We had seen a lot of violence in
protests over the previous days,”
the official said. “He was just re-
minding forces on the ground that
we were there to support law en-
forcement and to stay calm in the
face of uncertainty.”
At 6:20 p.m., DeMarco said, the
Park Police issued three warning
announcements to the protesters.
But he said the warnings were
made using a handheld mega-
phone at the base of the Andrew
Jackson statue, 50 yards from the
protesters. DeMarco said he stood
20 yards from the protesters, “the
announcements were barely audi-
ble and I saw no indication that
the demonstrators were cogni-
zant of the warnings to disperse.”
The operation to clear the pro-
testers began at 6:30 p.m., DeMar-
co said. The National Guard did
not participate in the direct push,
but was used to follow the officers
who dispersed the protesters and
establish the new perimeter, De-
Marco said.
As the federal and local police
officers waded into the crowd of
protesters, DeMarco said, he saw
smoke being used and was told by
a Park Police officer that it was
“stage smoke,” not tear gas. But
DeMarco said, “I could feel irrita-
tion in my eyes and nose, and
based on my previous exposure to
tear gas in my training at West
Point and later in my Army train-
ing, I recognized that irritation as
effects consistent with CS or ‘tear
gas.’ ”
The Park Police have adamant-
ly denied using tear gas, instead
saying they shot balls with pepper
spray irritant in them. The Secret
Service has not commented on
whether it fired tear gas.
DeMarco said that as he fol-
lowed the Park Police down H
Street, he saw “unidentified law
enforcement personnel behind
our National Guardsmen using
‘paintball-like’ weapons to dis-in the park, and fires were set both
at the park and in adjacent St.
John’s Church. The Park Police
have said 51 officers were injured
in the days immediately after the
protests began.
The next day, June 1, a number
of agencies gathered to defend the
park, including the Park Police,
the Secret Service, the D.C. Na-
tional Guard and Arlington Coun-
ty police. The heads of the agen-
cies attended a 2 p.m. meeting at
an FBI command center, and Barr
told CBS News that a decision to
expand the perimeter around the
park “was communicated to all
the police agencies.”
But no specific time or plan of
action was discussed, both D.C.
Police Chief Peter Newsham and
Gen. Joseph L. Lengyel, head of
the National Guard, told The Post
last month. DeMarco’s testimony
corroborates that account. A cur-
few was set for 7 p.m., “so I was not
expecting any clearing operation
to commence before then,” De-
Marco said.
But at 6:05 p.m., DeMarco said,
Barr and Milley entered the park.
DeMarco said he briefed the Army
general, who told him to respect
the demonstrators’ rights.
Milley has testified he had no
prior knowledge of the forcible
clearing of Lafayette Square. A
Defense Department official said
Monday that Milley was simply
surveying the situation in the
park because of the president’s
wish to use military troops to
quell protests, and that Milley waspal Church. He was photographed
holding a Bible, did not make any
remarks and then walked back to
the White House.
Barr said in a news conference
on June 4 that he made the deci-
sion to expand the perimeter
north of Lafayette Square, from H
Street to I Street.
“There was no correlation be-
tween our tactical plan of moving
the perimeter out by one block
and the president’s going over to
the church,” Barr said.
The Justice Department did
not respond to a request for com-
ment Monday.
Laws and court rulings require
police to provide demonstrators
with repeated, clear warnings of
officers’ intentions and then ad-
equate time and avenues for pro-
testers to disperse peacefully, but
DeMarco said the warnings given
on June 1 almost certainly
couldn’t be heard by the crowd.
On the night of May 31, projec-
tiles and fireworks were launched
toward Park Police officers and
National Guard soldiers stationedMay 30. Monahan continued,
“Once the fencing arrived, an on-
the-ground assessment of the vio-
lence and danger presented by the
crowd led to the clearing of the
Park and the installation of the
fence.” That conflicts with DeMar-
co’s claim that the fencing didn’t
arrive until later that night.
“The hearing comes at an inter-
esting time, during the protests in
Portland and Seattle,” said Rep.
Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair-
man of the Natural Resources
Committee, “and the presence of
both police and ICE in those areas.
What happened at Lafayette
Square was kind of a precursor to
the escalations this administra-
tion is using, the using of federal
law enforcement, the contempla-
tion of use of the military in these
communities.”
The Trump administration has
said the clearing operation was
planned in advance, and Justice
Department spokeswoman Kerri
Kupec previously said, “No one
voiced disagreement with that
plan.” The White House has not
commented on the timing of the
operation, which started about 30
minutes before the 7 p.m. curfew.
As police were clearing the area
around Lafayette Square, Trump
began a short speech at the White
House, and some of the small
explosions from the park could be
heard in the background. The
president then walked with an
entourage to the park, which is
adjacent to the White House, and
stood in front of St. John’s Episco-sonnel remained calm, adding
that we were there to respect the
demonstrators’ First Amendment
rights,” DeMarco said.
Milley has since apologized for
his presence in Lafayette Square,
saying: “I should not have been
there. My presence in that mo-
ment, and in that environment,
created a perception of the mili-
tary involved in domestic poli-
tics.”
DeMarco is scheduled to testify
Tuesday before the House Natural
Resources Committee, which is
investigating the government’s
actions in clearing protesters
from Lafayette Square with pro-
jectiles, gas, smoke and mounted
police, including an apparent as-
sault on Australian journalists by
two Park Police officers. His state-
ment was posted Monday on the
committee’s website.
Monahan also is scheduled to
testify. In a statement posted
Monday evening by the commit-
tee, he asserted that violence be-
ginning May 29 outside the White
House led to the decision to ex-
pand the perimeter with fencing
that protesters could not scale.
“The unprecedented and sus-
tained nature of the violence and
destruction associated with some
of the activities in Lafayette Park
and surrounding park areas im-
mediate and adjacent to the White
House required de-escalation,”
the chief’s statement said, adding
that the decision was made late on
PROTESTS FROM B1
National Guard o∞cer contradicts Lafayette Square claims
“At no time did I feel threatened
by the protestors or assess them to be violent....
Yet they were subjected to an unprovoked
escalation and excessive use of force.”
Adam D. DeMarco,
D .C. National Guard major, in prepared testimonyBY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDERrichmond — City police arrest-
ed 23 people over the weekend
after demonstrations for social
justice turned violent on Satur-
day and Sunday nights, inter-
rupting more than three weeks of
largely peaceful protests.
Officials blamed outsiders for
an escalation that saw about
$100,000 in damage to windows
at Virginia Commonwealth Uni-
versity, a city dump truck set
ablaze and one man caught on
video firing a gun into the ground
in a confrontation with protest-
ers.
“There were white suprema-
cists marching under the banner
of Black Lives Matter, attempting
to undermine an otherwise over-
whelmingly peaceful movement
towards social justice,” Mayor
Levar Stoney said Sunday at a
news conference.
He offered little direct evi-
dence of outside influence,
though officials said Monday that
was still under investigation. Po-
lice Chief Gerald M. Smith said
that fliers promoting anti-police
rallies for the weekend had been
produced outside of Richmond
and that several of the people
arrested were from other parts of
the state.
Demonstrations have been go-
ing on virtually every night in
Richmond since May 31, trig-
gered by the killing of George
Floyd in Minneapolis police cus-
tody a few days before. The first
night or two featured looting and
broken windows, and police have
used chemical agents severaltimes to disperse crowds.
But for much of the past
month, as city and state leaders
began pulling down the city’s
Confederate statues and pledged
to address racial inequities, the
protests have had the air of civic-
minded street festivals, with mu-
sic, speeches and public art.
Late last week, the anti-police
fliers began circulating on social
media, calling for rallies on Sat-
urday in sympathy with protest-
ers in Portland, Ore., where un-
badged federal troops have beenusing tear gas and harsh tactics
against demonstrators.
That night, several hundred
protesters staged a confrontation
outside the heavily fortified head-
quarters of t he Richmond police.
The cab of a city dump truck was
set ablaze, along with two dump-
sters.
Police later released a photo of
batteries, rocks and bricks that
they said protesters had thrown
at officers that night. Smith said
firefighters responding to the
burning truck were also peltedwith bricks.
Later that night, video posted
to social media showed a white
man jump out of a pickup truck
and confront a small number of
protesters while appearing to fire
a handgun into the ground. No
one was injured. Smith said Mon-
day that the incident was under
investigation and that no arrests
had been made.
Six people were arrested Satur-
day night — five charged with
unlawful assembly and the sixth
with assault of a police officer.On Sunday night, after a simi-
lar flier was distributed, police
“took a proactive approach,”
Smith said Monday. Officers were
waiting at Monroe Park, a gather-
ing place for protesters that
closed at 10 p.m. When people
failed to disperse after closing,
police moved in and made 17
arrests — including at least one
reporter for the VCU campus
newspaper who was covering the
protests.
The charges included t respass-
ing, rioting, possessing a weapon
with an extended magazine and
possession of cocaine with intent
to distribute.
Officials supplied little direct
evidence to back up claims that
the weekend’s violence was per-
petrated by outsiders, though
Smith said that was still under
investigation. Nine of the 15
adults arrested were from Rich-
mond or nearby Henrico County,
and the rest were all from Vir-
ginia.
Stoney displayed a photo of a
plywood sign painted to say
“Black Lives Matter” that he said
a white supremacist had carried
as a shield.
“The mission is simple,” Stoney
said Sunday. “To undermine the
months of peaceful, community-
driven protests that this city has
seen.”
[email protected]VIRGINIA
23 arrested in Richmond as demonstrations turn violent
JOE MAHONEY/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Protesters and officers square off outside the Richmond police headquarters on Saturday. Largely peaceful protests turned violent over the
weekend. O fficials blamed outsiders for the escalation, which s aw about $100,000 in damage at Virginia Commonwealth University.Mayor blames white
supremacists, outsiders
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