The situation remained tense in Washington, DC, Tuesday night as baseball bat-wielding demonstrators clashed with other protesters and police at Black Lives Matter Plaza.
In one instance, a man was hit with a metal baseball bat during a fight at BLM Plaza, just one block away from the White House.
Video of the skirmish shows a man in a black hooded sweatshirt shoving a man wearing a coat and khakis. Multiple people then move in on the man, pushing him up against a fence and throwing liquid on him.
Fights breaking out at Black Lives Matter Plaza in DC #Washington #DC pic.twitter.com/m5NSEWl3h8
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) November 4, 2020
Moments later, someone in the group hit the man with a metal baseball bat before he managed to squeeze along the fence and escape. Demonstrators in the background yelled, “Let him go” as he fled the assault.
Prior to the first blow, a man in an American flag mask and camouflage baseball cap attempted to separate the two men.
Julio Rosas, a Townhall reporter, tweeted a video of a stressful moment between demonstrators and police in the immediate aftermath of an arrest on election night.
“Tense moment in BLM Plaza…” the reporter tweeted.
Tense moment in BLM Plaza, near the White House, after DC Police make an arrest. pic.twitter.com/FezW82D9rj
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) November 4, 2020
The tense moment was highlighted with demonstrators taunting and shouting obscenities at DC police officers.
Later that night, Drew Hernandez of Lives Matter Show posted a video showing one demonstrator shriek through a megaphone at what is believed to be a Black police officer, calling him an “Uncle Tom.”
DC: “F*ck you, you f*ckin UNCLE TOM coon ass mother F*ck you!”
BLM protesters going ballistic on black police officers in the streets pic.twitter.com/QsQ4zsMGhW
— Drew Hernandez (@livesmattershow) November 4, 2020
The ShutDown DC demonstration at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, DC, Tuesday night called for supporters to “defend democracy.”
“For months, Donald Trump and his enablers have waged an attack on the democratic process. They’re mobilizing an army of thugs to intimidate voters at the polls, they’re trying to limit access to early voting, and they even tried to dismantle the US Postal Service,” Shutdown DC’s website stated. “During this triple crisis—the COVID-19 pandemic, the recession, and the crisis of police violence and institutional racism—the stakes are simply too high to sit at home and watch the results play out.”
According to the event’s website, the demonstration will continue until Friday, November 6.
