Black Lives Matter DC activists complained earlier this week that the Metropolitan Police Department failed to protect them while continuing to call for defunding police. The irony came during a press conference held in Black Lives Matter Plaza Sunday afternoon.
Black Lives Matter DC Anthony Lorenzo Green said during the Sunday press conference that the mayor and police department failed “to protect the rights of D.C. residents” during the Stop the Steal Trump rally held in the nation’s capital on Saturday. ”
Live BLM DC press conference on white… – Black Lives Matter DC #BLM #ChicagoProtest #ChicagoProtests #OlympiaProtests #NYCProtest #PDXProtests https://t.co/cyTmUzJ4ew
— NoB1 (@NoB1konoB) December 13, 2020
“As we’ve witnessed for many months now during this uprising and for years in our own communities, MPD does not, cannot, will not keep us safe,” Green continued.
Breitbart News reports that in June, BLM DC listed defunding the police as one of its demands during the city’s budget hearings.
#StopTheSteal RT @DrewHLive: DC: Multiple brawls break out between patriots and Antifa/BLM on the streets of DC tonight
Many BLM and Antifa have retreated behind police protection as a result #tatumreport #drewhernandez pic.twitter.com/xn1Zy12Bf3
— Media Blackout-elect (@Boortzfan66) December 12, 2020
Nee Nee Taylor, a direct action coordinator for BLM DC, told the spectators at the plaza that they did not come to the area on Saturday to counterprotest the pro-Trump rally. She said they came “to make a safer place because no place is safe in DC for black people or people of color.”
Shame on every single reporter that continues to cover the brutalization of Black & brown people tonight as “clashes between blm & trump supporters.”
NO!
Our city is under attack. STOP the false equivalency! #DefendDC #D12
— Black Lives Matter DC (@DMVBlackLives) December 13, 2020
“Here at Black Lives Matter Plaza is where we uplift the defunding of the police,” Taylor stated. She said they should defund MPD because “MPD doesn’t keep us safe.”
Other speakers continued to lay out their case as to why MPD should be defunded and that they failed to protect “their streets.”
"Tonight our #BlackLivesMatter sign was taken.
We condemn this assault on our property and on our gospel message that #BlackLivesMatter.
We remain sure that #BlackLivesMatter is biblical and the God we serve calls us as church to proclaim and live this truth." – Rev @KarenBrau pic.twitter.com/1cQMFOXKZb— Luther Place (@LutherPlace) December 12, 2020