Protesters by National Guard troops outside of Union Station in Washington, DC, on August 15.Bryan Dozier
In a small park in northwest Washington on Friday, a group of what appeared to be eight federal agents posed for a picture in front of an anti-ICE banner. Then they tore down the sign and departed with it. In its place they appeared to have left a dildo.
We can’t be sure how much thought the feds gave to their actions. But by removing a banner because they didn’t like what it said, then depositing a rubber dick in a park frequented by children, they crisply conveyed what Donald Trump’s occupation of DC is really about.
The agents were not there to stop crime. Instead, they communicated to the mixed leafy neighborhood of Salvadoran immigrants and mostly progressive-leaning townhouse residents that Donald Trump has the power to override their rights and democracy in the left-leaning district. Or, basically, suck our dildo.
National Guard troops parked by monuments and museums in downtown DC are far from the spots where the worst DC crime occurs, but well placed to alert tourists that the president has the power to occupy DC with troops. The dismantling of homeless encampments in the district, without planning for where the residents will go, does nothing to address homelessness or the fentanyl crisis in the district, but it does remove signs of poverty from the route the president takes on his way to play golf.
Less than a week into the occupation, Trump’s display of authoritarianism, famously greeted by a Subway sandwich-chucking now-former DOJ employee, is still ramping up. But it is facing mounting pushback from DC residents.
On Friday, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, after waffling slightly between defiance and efforts to maintain cordial relations with the White House, moved toward opposition. The district sued to block Trump’s effort to seize control of its Metropolitan Police, arguing that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s attempt to install Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Terry Cole as head of the force was illegal. DC got a quick, if partial, victory on Friday, when Judge Ana Reyes persuaded the DOJ to walk back Bondi’s order and remove Cole as de facto head of the department.
Reyes said the White House can ask DC police for help, but cannot simply dictate their policies. “The statute would have no meaning at all if the president could just say, ‘we’re taking over your police department,’” Reyes said. Reyes did not rule on whether Trump can compel DC police to enforce federal immigration laws, but said she believed the president does have some power to enlist local officers for immigration actions.
Bowser’s pushback clearly reflects pressure from DC residents. Red “Free DC” signs distributed by a local nonprofit are rapidly multiplying in yards around the city.
On Wednesday night, a federal checkpoint at 14th and V Streets NW near a popular nightlife area drew a crowd of protesters, including residents who made hand-held signs warning drivers to avoid the agents, and heckled the federal agents, chanting “shame” and “go home.” Onlookers cheered as local police, who had accompanied the feds, departed.
Tensions continued Friday night. Steven Rangel, 21, said he was walking along 14th St, NW, around 9:45 p.m. with a poster and megaphone announcing the presence of ICE agents nearby when a man tore up his poster. Rangel said the man had repeatedly indicated he had a gun on his hip and threatened: “If you come closer I’m going to shoot you.”
More than half a dozen bystanders yelled for the nearby Homeland Security agents to intervene, but according to Rangel, “They just stood there.” The agents, supposedly on the streets to prevent crime, told Rangel to call 911, he said.
Later a Mother Jones reporter saw the man who attacked Rangel smashing what appeared to be a camera or cell phone he had taken from a photographer, while yelling that the photographer as well as protesters were the reason law enforcement officers get killed on the job. After a 911 call, DC police officers arrived and spoke to the man. Federal agents did not.
At a McDonalds at 14th and U Street, an area ripe with bars and clubs, David, a lifelong DC resident in his 50s, said the federal agents patrolling that area, “are in the wrong place. They should be in dangerous neighborhoods.”
On Saturday, independent journalist Marisa Kabas posted a video that shows a half dozen masked federal agents tasing and punching a unarmed man while subduing him. The video does not show what prompted the confrontation. Asked by onlookers for identification and what agency they work for, one agent responds: “Do I have to answer to you?” And: “I don’t care my guy.”
In Mount Pleasant Saturday, the park where agents ripped down the anti-ICE sign was full of new slogans opposing the occupation, written in chalk on the sidewalk. One, where the dildo was left hours earlier, read, with a slight misspelling, “Gustapo Go Home!”
Isaias Guerrero, co-director of local group Poder del Pueblo, which organized a protest concert in the park on Thursday night, said the group planned to hold additional events using music to oppose what he called “the actions of a dictator.”
“We’re saying, ‘We’re not gonna take that,” Guerrero said. “This is a show of fighting for democracy.”