A large group of protesters pushed against a wall of Secret Service members protecting the White House and President Trump.
Reporting from Lafayette Park only a few hundred yards away from the White House, Fox News correspondent Leland Vittert said the scene was “unprecedented,” as Secret Service members in riot gear were met by at least 100 protesters.
“I have never seen this in now six years in D.C. I don’t know the last time that it’s happened, but the Secret Service is now in riot gear,” Vittert said. “They have exercised incredible strength with the epithets thrown at them.”
Protesters in major cities across the country are demonstrating after 46-year-old George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police on Monday. Floyd, a black man, died after white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin restrained him by placing his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
The protesters were active in the area into the early hours of Saturday morning. The Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Park Police were also on the scene.
LIVE in front of the White House again …. https://t.co/9o0fRKYc2J
— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) May 30, 2020
Earlier, Vitter reported that the Secret Service had yet to arrest anyone on the scene but that “the level of activity” continued to ramp up as midnight passed. During at least one point in the protests, people in the crowd shouted that tear gas had been deployed.
Tear gas at the White House pic.twitter.com/4iTHBdMOvU
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) May 30, 2020
“There is the White House,” Vittert said. “The president is here tonight sleeping in the White House or awake watching television or on the phone talking to friends, and this is what’s happening right outside his house.”
Protesters yelled “f— the police” and “black lives matters” while pushing against Secret Service members. Vittert reported that at least one officer had been hit with a projectile and was being treated for injuries.
“It appears as though, at least a couple of Secret Service officers, one of them just got hurt,” Vittert said. “You can see him walking back there clutching his head.”
Earlier in the evening, the White House was placed on lockdown after protesters knocked down barricades in front of the complex. The lockdown was lifted after the scene had calmed down. Protests flared up again late Friday night.
At one point, around midnight, protesters chased off a Fox News reporter who was reporting on the demonstration.
Trump, who made an announcement at the White House about the World Health Organization earlier in the day, has not been active on Twitter all evening.
Chauvin and three other officers involved in Floyd’s detainment were fired on Tuesday. Chauvin was taken into custody on Friday and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
