Taylor Griffin, who works as a press assistant for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and previously led a Black Lives Matter protest in blocking off a Washington, D.C. highway had a tense confrontation with DC police officers at a Black Lives Matter event Sunday evening.
The confrontation took place at a racially exclusive #BlackLivesMatter event titled #BlackJoySunday, which is advertised as a “consistent place where we can be affirmed in our blackness and cultivate a shared sense of black joy” and “a healing space for all black people.”
The event is part of a larger trend of black people barring whites from events in order to create “safe spaces” for blacks.
A Facebook post by Black Lives Matter DMV advertised the event as a “house party” exclusively for “all black people” in DC’s Anacostia neighborhood. Videos of the event uploaded to Griffin’s Twitter account showed participants dancing in the front yard with red party cups in their hands.
Ms. Griffin, who has a penchant for tweeting about “white privilege,” “white supremacy,” and “white silence,” claimed on Twitter that Metropolitan Police Department officers “harassed and threatened” the Black Lives Matter crowd.
In a video posted to Twitter, one of the two officers tells the group that they were responding to a 911 call on the same block when they walked over to the house party to make sure a break-in was not happening.
“We saw some individuals see us, pop out and then pop back [into the house],” a frustrated police officer is seen explaining in a video uploaded by Griffin.
“We wanted to make sure nothing crazy was going on. We walked by, saw y’all were having a party, which means there’s no issue,” the officer continues.
The officer then claims a woman driving by the scene started an argument with the policemen.
The Black Lives Matter group at the party sided with the woman.
Later video shows the officer asking “if there were people breaking into your house, would you want the police to pay attention?”
“I would like them not to yell at my friends,” a woman snaps back.
Video uploaded by Griffin shows the same police officer saying one of the women “just wants to accuse us, once again because we’re white, of doing something wrong.”
Earlier video appears to show a woman in a car yelling something about “white people’s housing” at the officer.
Later video from Griffin then shows the Black Lives Matter crowd dancing to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” in the front yard while holding red party cups. “After their threats, we reclaimed our space to #TakeBackOurStreetsDC with some Kendrick,” the caption reads.
The Pelosi staffer previously led a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters in shutting down a DC highway, later tweeting “Who shut shit down? We shut shit down.”