A crowd of protesters gathered Wednesday in Washington, D.C. for another night of demonstrations, which were largely peaceful.
The Wednesday protest’s mostly peaceful nature was markedly different than the demonstrations that took place on Monday and Tuesday, where rioters assaulted journalists and got into violent altercations with police. Four-hundred National Guardsmen were deployed to the nation’s capital for the Wednesday demonstrations, Politico reported.
Protests and riots erupted nationwide after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis Police custody May 25.
The ongoing demonstrations turned violent in the nation’s capital during recent weeks. Daily Caller reporter Shelby Talcott was assaulted Monday night by rioters who accused her of being an undercover police officer and tried to grab her phone while she was filming in the “Black House Autonomous Zone.”
Graffiti was removed from St. John’s Church Wednesday after the historic landmark was vandalized by protesters Monday night. The church has been a target for destruction throughout the ongoing protests and was set on fire last month.
Police also set up a fence around the church in anticipation of another night of protests.
Smaller crowds out here currently in DC. There’s a drum line and people are just walking around/hanging out.
A fence has been put up around St. John’s Church and police are standing in front of it. Also, the graffiti has been removed from the church: pic.twitter.com/zeBQqB3L75
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) June 25, 2020
A D.C. resident spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation about calls to remove historical statues and monuments across the country.
“Statues are not going to change anything … history is already written,” he said. “We should turn the page, that’s it.”
Statues that have been toppled by rioters include monuments of Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Columbus and Civil War hero Col. Hans Christian Heg.
Protesters forced out a street preacher who came to the area outside of St. John’s Church. Police escorted the preacher out as protesters followed and yelled at him with a megaphone.
Protesters forced out a street preacher. They followed him out, yelling and playing a megaphone in his face until two cops came to escort him away: pic.twitter.com/f8UzyC3fYv
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) June 25, 2020
“We’re not here about religion,” a woman told the preacher. “Take it to the church, I bet the cops would let your white ass in,” she says.
As police escorted the man away, a protester followed with a megaphone and repeatedly yelled “go home!”
A protester told the Daily Caller News Foundation that she thinks “we don’t need statues to remember the atrocities” that happened in history. “What we need is the actual education of what these individuals did.”
She said that if the statues are going to be replaced, they should be replaced with monuments of those who contributed to ending slavery. It doesn’t matter if they are black or white, she added, as long as they “speak to the true ideals of what it means to be American.”