June 5, 2020

Mayor Demands Military and Federal Law Enforcement Leave DC’s Streets

Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks to media on June 3, 2020, near the White House.Alex Brandon/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser asked Donald Trump on Friday to withdraw thousands of federal law enforcement officers and troops that he summoned to DC to quell protests that erupted in the capital following the police killing of George Floyd.

Bowser also announced an end to DC’s state of emergency related to demonstrations.

Bowser wrote that the presence of “unidentified federal personnel patrolling the streets of Washington, DC pose both safety and national security risks.” After Mother Jones and other publications highlighted the presence of unidentified law enforcement personnel in the district, the Justice Department said they were special units from the Bureau of Prisons who are trained to quell prison riots. But many demonstrators in DC continue to face federal officers whose names and affiliations are not displayed.

“When citizens are unable to clearly identify legitimate law enforcement officers, it creates unnecessary risk for both protectors and officers,” Bowser wrote, noting that “identifying insignia is mandatory” in the district. (This law does not cover federal officers.)

Bloomberg, citing a summary prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported Thursday that there are 7,600 civilian law enforcement, National Guard, and active-duty Army personnel currently in and around DC. That includes 1,704 active-duty troops who are stationed outside the capital at military bases, who have not been deployed to DC streets.

There was no indication that Trump and Attorney General William Barr, who have attributed the lack of looting and violence in DC this week to the massive federal presence, will comply with the mayor’s demand. But already, National Guard troops who have occupied DC streets are apparently departing at Bowser’s request, drawing gripes from Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Lee argued that “rioting, looting, arson, and vandalism have all disappeared [because] these soldiers served.” He presumes that because protests that occurred while the guard troops were deployed were peaceful, the troops prevented violence and crime. But Bowser said that the massive numbers of outside law enforcement and military in DC is “enflaming demonstrators” and “adding to the grievances” of peaceful protesters.

It’s impossible to prove either case, but one indication will be what happens when these troops and unidentified federal agents depart.

But Bowser seems newly ready to confront the Trump administration. In a pointed message to federal agencies policing protests, including from helicopters that have hovered over the capital, the district painted “Black Lives Matter” on 16th Street between K and H streets just north of the White House.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate