But in an episode described as rebellion and a coup attempt, police made just 61 “unrest-related” arrests that day – and only about half of them were on the Capitol grounds, said Robert Contee, chief of the Metropolitan Police Department last week.
It’s certainly a valuable context and sparks important debates about police and race, but a longer look shows that the BLM protests were just one example where police in the country’s capital seemed willing to respond with the full force of the law.
Here are some examples, in numbers:
133 LGBTQ activists, Oct 8, 2019
Across First Street from the Capitol, the U.S. Supreme Court would hear arguments in three cases that many gay rights advocates would say would dictate the level of protection they would receive under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title VII labor rules.
Activists were on First Street in an act of civil disobedience, reported the Washington Blade, an LGBTQ news outlet that quoted the U.S. Capitol Police and said the protesters were charged with displacement, hindrance and nuisance.
147 protesters against climate change, January 10, 2020
Actor Jane Fonda’s “fire drill fridays” spawned numerous arrests – including many celebrities – in late 2019 and early 2020 when the ex-wife of CNN founder Ted Turner took her anger over climate change’s passivity to the capital.
In the 14th week of protests, Joaquin Phoenix and Martin Sheen were among the stars in custody, as Capitol police confirmed that dozens of people were accused of displacement, hindrance or nuisance.
181 Supporters of Obamacare, September 25, 2017
When the GOP began to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in the summer of 2017, protests erupted week after week in the capital, leading to several days of arrests. On two separate days in July, Capitol police confirmed to CNN that 80 and then 155 protesters had been arrested who entered the halls of Congress to participate in peaceful protests – sit-ins, chanting, lying on the floor, and the like. .
However, the highest number of arrests for one day of the protests came in September, when protesters – many of whom, Reuters reported, were in wheelchairs (most belonged to a disability rights group) – delayed a Senate hearing. Capitol Police began to round them up en masse.
Fifteen were charged with disrupting Congress and 166 were charged with displacement, disruption, or nuisance, with 23 of those charged with resisting arrest, according to Capitol Police.
217 Trump’s inauguration of protesters, January 20, 2017
While demonstrations broke out across the country, police in the country’s capital handled ugly street clashes between police and antifa in downtown Washington.
Six officers were injured and police used pepper spray afterward, CNN reported: “ Bursts of chaos erupted on 12th and K streets as black-clad ‘anti-fascist’ protesters smashed shop fronts and bus stops, smashed out the windows of a limousine and eventually stones were launched into a police phalanx set up on an easterly crossing. Agents responded by launching smoke and flash-bang devices, heard from blocks away, onto the street to disperse the crowd. “
302 Opponents of Brett Kavanaugh, Oct 4, 2018
Several days of protest against Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court yielded hundreds of arrests, but many of them came in one day when lawmakers reviewed an FBI report allegations against so-called justice.
It was another star-studded affair as comedian Amy Schumer and model Emily Ratajkowski were among those taken into custody.
The arrests began in mid-afternoon with 293 people arrested for illegal demonstrations in a Senate building and nine others were later arrested in another Senate building, a Capitol Police spokeswoman said. All were charged with displacement, hindrance or nuisance, the department said.
316 Black Lives Matter protesters, June 1, 2020
Many wondered on Wednesday: Where are the police and the military?
No one asked such questions in June, when Black Lives Matter protesters, who condemned the deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans at the hands of the police, took to the streets to find military helicopters hovering over the city, troops of the National Guard patrolled the streets and tear gas fills the air.
An analysis of the Metropolitan Police Department’s data shows that local police arrested five times as many people during the Floyd protests as during last week’s uprising.
372 Keystone pipeline protesters, March 2, 2014
As President Barack Obama’s administration evaluated plans for the $ 5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline, nearly 1,000 protesters from Georgetown University marched to the home of Secretary of State John Kerry and then to the White House, where they received a ‘human oil spill’.
Other protesters tied their hands to the White House fence and lay down on tarps in front of the White House, urging Obama to reject the project. Ultimately, Lelani Woods, a spokeswoman for the US park police, told The Washington Post that 372 people had been taken into custody.
400+ Democracy Spring activists, April 11, 2016
It started in Philadelphia with protesters from various groups marching 150 miles south to sit-in on the steps of the Capitol, denouncing the influence of a lot of money on politics and Congress’s refusal to grant it. to turn back denounced. In one day of the protracted protests, Capitol Police arrested more than 400 people for “unlawful demonstration activities” and charged with displacement, obstruction and nuisance.
While the Progressive Change Campaign Committee labeled the demonstrations as “nonviolent civil disobedience,” aimed at opening talks about “major democracy issues,” numerous media outlets reported more than 900 arrests during the protests. Salon pegged the final count at 1,240 over a week of protests.
575 immigration policy protesters, June 28, 2018
More than 1,000 women marched through Washington, protesting the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington, was one of hundreds of those arrested, according to Capitol Police.
The demonstrations were largely peaceful. Protesters barely argued with the officers who arrested them, who in most cases refused to even use handcuffs to take the women into custody. Several Democratic lawmakers – including Senator Tammy Duckworth, who arrived with her child in tow – showed up to show their support for the demonstration.
12,000+ Opponents of the Vietnam War, May 1, 1971
This is not officially on this list. It’s not the fairest comparison, given that half a century has passed and the country looks markedly different from 1971. But the May 1 protests against the Vietnam War have been described as the ‘greatest mass arrest’ and ‘greatest mass -arrest’. acquittal “of protesters in US history.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 5,000 police officers, backed by 1,400 National Guardsman, greeted the 35,000 protesters who came to Washington that day.
“Anyone and everyone who looked strange … was taken off the street,” a protester said, according to an ACLU article. A federal court later agreed, saying, “Both the innocent and the guilty were swept off the streets in great numbers and placed in detention centers.”
An ACLU victory resulted in acquittals for nearly all protesters, allowing them to collect monetary compensation for their mistreatment, the civil rights organization said.
CNN’s Casey Tolan, Gregory Krieg, Leah Asmelash, Sophie Tatum and Mary Grace Lucas contributed to this report.
