D.C. residents reportedly let protesters inside their homes to protect them from police

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Some protesters on Monday were allowed by residents to enter their homes as riot police trapped them during demonstrations.
• Protesters claim that their demonstration is generally peaceful, and authorities cornered them on the street.
• There are also reports that some journalists were caught in the middle of the arrests, but were cleared upon verifying their identities.

On Monday, residents of Swann Street NW in Washington D.C have unlocked their homes for protesters who were cornered by riot officers during a rally against police violence.

After President Donald Trump promised to put an end to riots and ordered federal law enforcement troops to fire tear gas to clear the crowds so he could have a photo taken holding a Bible in front of a church, police surrounded protesters on a D.C. street near the southern side of 14th and U Street NW.

The famous area was the center of riots after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in 1968.

While widespread looting and rioting erupted in D.C. since the last few days,  no proof was established that anyone from the demonstrators who were mass arrested by police on Monday were part of it.

A 22-year-old protester, whose name was withheld for her protection, told HuffPost that their demonstrations are peaceful when the police officers led them to a trap. She added that the protesters were chanting when the authorities started running toward them upon turning right on the street.

She recalled that some of them started dispersing to houses, knocked on doors, and said they were lucky that some residents had let them in, while she described other demonstrators were hysterical when the riot police locked them in.

In the same incident, at least two news reporters were trapped in the commotion. One journalist said they said they were sprayed with pepper but later cleared after verifying their identities. The other reporter said they fled through a backdoor after being let into a resident’s home.

A journalist working for The Washington Post said one homeowner who helped protesters is Rahul Dubey, who was a 44-year-old Indian American and a business owner of a healthcare innovations firm.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, D, set the city’s curfew at 7 p.m., and the arrests happened at the period. Suits in the country’s capital aren’t handled by a locally voted district attorney but by the Trump-dominated District of Columbia’s U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is getting ready in the suppression of rioting. State prosecutors in D.C. have earlier charged more than 200 Trump inauguration demonstrators who were cornered with criminal charges that can put them in prison for decades.

The Metropolitan Police Department is yet to comment on the issue.

Source: AOL