DC Mayor Muriel Bowser says Trump’s ‘vicious dogs’ Tweets evoke reminders of civil rights crackdowns
WASHINGTON - D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Saturday addressed President Donald Trump’s comments that police brutality protesters would have been met with “wild dogs” if they’d breached the White House’s fence.
The president delivered the comments via Twitter, saying:
“Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen.”
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D.C.’s protests mirrored similar events nationwide – some more violent than others – in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died shortly after an incident in which he was taken into custorya video surfaced showing a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for a prolonged period of time.
The incident was a flashpoint for racially charged tensions between the black community and law enforcement, and punctuated a string of incidents in which unarmed black people were killed by law enforcement.
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In March, a Louisville EMT, Breonna Taylor, was shot to death by police in her apartment.
The president also applauded the Secret Service, saying:
“They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe. They let the “protesters” scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard - didn’t know what hit them.”
Trump’s comments have been sharply criticized since demonstrations in Minneapolis turned violent, and he threatened to call in the National Guard, saying, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
The National Guard has since been deployed to multiple citiies to help control demonstrations that have turned violent.
Six people were arrested Friday night in D.C., but Saturday afternoon protests were decidedly more peaceful.
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