A number of National Guardsmen are voicing concerns about their roles in controlling the George Floyd protests.
President Trump and a number of governors used the National Guard to maintain order as looting and violence occurred amid larger, peaceful protests, but some guardsmen found their deployment problematic, according to Politico, which spoke to 10 who were involved in the response.
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In particular, some guardsmen viewed Trump’s trip to the recently vandalized St. John’s Episcopal Church as problematic. Before the president’s walk from the White House to the church, an assortment of law enforcement fired smoke canisters and rubber bullets to disperse protesters and forcibly clear Lafayette Square.
“As a military officer, what I saw was more or less really f—ed up,” said one D.C. guardsman who was deployed to the park last Monday before disputing Attorney General William Barr’s claim that the protesters were not being “peaceful” at the time.
“The crowd was loud but peaceful, and at no point did I feel in danger, and I was standing right there in the front of the line,” he said. “A lot of us are still struggling to process this, but in a lot of ways, I believe I saw civil rights being violated in order for a photo-op. I’m here to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and what I just saw goes against my oath and to see everyone try to cover up what really happened.”
“What I saw was just absolutely wrong,” he added.
One of the major sticking points following the president’s trip to the church was the controversy over whether law enforcement officers used pepper spray or tear gas in their efforts to disperse the crowd. The White House has denied the use of tear gas.
“I’ve been tear-gassed before. I was there the night before when we got tear-gassed, there was tear gas there,” another guardsman said, calling the administration’s claims into doubt.
Pvt. Si’Kenya Lynch, a member of the D.C. National Guard, was also on duty at Lafayette Square at the time that the park was cleared, and her brother was one of the protesters who felt the effects of the irritant used.
“I was happy to see him out there … to walk for me when I couldn’t,” she said, saying that she would have joined him if she could have “to support the people” and “to support what was right.”
