DC declares 7 p.m. curfew after arson and looting in nation’s capital

A protest against the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police drew thousands outside the White House on Sunday and gave way to an escalating citywide rampage of looting and arson.

In response to startling scenes of violence, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser on Monday morning announced a 7 p.m. curfew for two days, though her 11 p.m. curfew order was widely flouted Sunday.

“We certainly empathize with the righteous cause that people are here protesting,” Bowser said. “However, smashed windows and looting are becoming a bigger story.”

Just 88 people were arrested overnight, police said, as hundreds of activists pillaged the city. The night before, police made just 18 arrests.

The two-night spree of lawlessness was rare for the city, where a window-smashing march at President Trump’s inauguration in 2017 ended in the swift mass-arrest of nearly 250 people.

“We are not done making arrests,” DC Police Chief Peter Newsham said Monday, defending his department’s response and urging business owners to share security footage. He offered a $1,000 bounty for turning in culprits.

Asked why officers did not do more to re-establish control, Newsham said police realized that “when we do take police action in the large crowds, that it agitates the crowds and it becomes very volatile and very dangerous for our officers.”

Chaos erupted around 10 p.m. on Sunday night as smoke billowed from multiple fires set to buildings and cars — beginning with a large bonfire in the middle of H Street, north of the White House.

A public bathroom on Lafayette Park facing the White House was set ablaze, along with the nearby basement of St. John’s Episcopal church, a historic 1816 landmark where services have been attended by every president since James Madison. Moments earlier, the church’s American flag was stolen and added to the mid-street bonfire to cheers.

Officers in riot gear charged the crowd to allow fire crews access to the sites minutes before Bowser’s 11 p.m. curfew Sunday. They were met with at least one Molotov cocktail and fireworks hurled in their direction.

Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO union building one block north on 16th Street was spray-painted, smashed and set alight. Later, fires were set to a tree outside the World Bank’s headquarters and to the lobby of an office building at 1776 I St.

Most fires were extinguished without significant damage.

Although Bowser imposed the curfew via mass text to residents’ cellphones, the crowd Sunday was far larger than the night before. Some said they considered the order insulting. “It drove me directly to action,” said an attendee.

Police used flash-bang grenades, tear gas and pepper spray to disperse crowds. Although the coronavirus pandemic continues, activists were tightly packed and coughed repeatedly as they inhaled the chemicals.

Dispersal did not stop an orgy of property damage. Many ATM machines and bank lobbies were smashed, with some secure boxes removed.

At least two CVS pharmacies were looted and another graffitied near K St — the city thoroughfare synonymous with powerful DC lobbyists. Activists swooped in for small change when the cash registers of stores were broken on sidewalks.

Marauding groups stole bottles from a liquor shop near George Washington University and the State Department. Near the Washington Post headquarters across town, looters of a different liquor store offered to share stolen bottles with passersby and smashed a Starbucks, a Corner Bakery and a Joe & the Juice.

A shaken African-American man working as a security guard on K St shook his head and said he refused a free bottle of booze. He said he knew the man who ran the shop.

“They say they’re doing this for George Floyd, but they’re doing the same thing to people that police did to him,” he said, likening the loss of Floyd’s life to the loss of businesspeople’s livelihoods.

The officer who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck, Derek Chauvin, was charged last week with murder.

Shortly before 1 am Monday, a sizable group proceeded uninhibited toward the east of the downtown area, smashing windows of office buildings as they went as firetrucks and police vehicles waited on standby blocks away. Mannequins were ripped from Jcrew near Chinatown and H&M and Sephora stores were attacked.

In Georgetown, one of the oldest and ritziest residential areas of Washington, retail shops were ransacked, with significant theft and destruction at Lululemon, Nike, Warby Parker and Sunglass Hut.

Attendance at Sunday night’s mayhem was significantly larger than the two preceding nights and many businesses boarded their windows with ply wood in anticipation.

An initial night of clashes Friday resulted in Trump briefly being brought to a secure bunker in the White House. And on Saturday night, rows of bricks and hundreds of bottles were chucked at Secret Service and national guardsmen who held a perimeter. Arson of two SUVs, the scaffolding near a hotel, a tea room and a bar were quickly extinguished Saturday.

The White House’s lights have been switched off at night as violence rages.

Although united in protest of George Floyd, weekend graffiti reflected a broader set of messaging. “F–k capitalism,” was written on a vandalized CVS. The Department of Veterans Affairs was repainted “Colony Affairs” and “F–k the rich” was written on the Hay-Adams hotel, one of the city’s most expensive.  “Kill all cops” was written on a sidewalk near the White House. One protest participant carried a Soviet flag on Sunday.

Newsham speculated Monday the violence may feature a degree of organization, but conceded he did not have evidence.

On Saturday, the crime spree spanned about two and a half miles across downtown, from retail stores including Michael Kors in the Georgetown to a ransacked Apple Store to the east in Mount Vernon Square, where looters made off with tech goods. On Sunday, the attacks reached far into northeastern and distant northwestern neighborhoods, the police chief said.

Whereas Saturday rioting drew pleas to stop from some participants — who sought unsuccessfully to shame compatriots, noting most overnight security guards in office buildings were black, and some were crying in fear — there were virtually no voices of restraint Sunday.