After police thwarted their attempt to topple the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square, using chemical irritants to push the crowd back, Black Lives Matter demonstrators spent the rainy night of June 23 agitating outside the White House, screaming obscenities at officers, setting fires, and more.
Law enforcement later removed the “Black House Autonomous Zone” encampment from St. John’s Church, where antifascists and others had set up tents and attempted to recreate the CHAZ territory in Seattle.
Protesters in Black Lives Matter Plaza, a strip of 16th Street just north of the White House, clashed with police again the next day, returning to taunt and shout at them, sometimes with a face mask, sometimes not. A white woman in Lululemon leggings mocked a black female police officer. A black office stood stoically for minutes while protesters yelled directly in his face.
This is a compilation of footage I captured while covering the events over the course of those two days.
