War Protesters Encounter Police Pressure
Occasional Standoffs Mark Rallies

By Manny Fernandez and Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 23, 2003; Page A29

Antiwar demonstrators descended on the White House and Northwest Washington neighborhoods in an improvised day of protests marked by sometimes-tense standoffs with police at Lafayette Square and near Logan Circle.

Unlike antiwar marches in Washington in recent weeks, in which organizers have largely worked with authorities to map out routes, yesterday's demonstrations at times took place in defiance of a heavy federal and local police presence. Ten people were arrested during the protests, most of them charged with failure to obey a police order.

Shortly after noon at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, marchers brushed aside barricades to enter Lafayette Square, across from the White House, which has been closed to demonstrations larger than 25 since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Later, as hundreds of marchers left the square to head up 14th Street, the chanting protesters circled back and ducked into alleys near Logan Circle to escape a police escort.

Several protesters said they were outraged when District police penned them in on Rhode Island Avenue NW between 14th and 15th streets for nearly an hour beginning about 1:30 p.m.

D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said the protesters were blocked because they had embarked on a route that deviated from their permit. "We can't have a situation where they just try to shut down the entire section," Ramsey said.

The situation ended without mass arrests after Ramsey said he had reached agreement with protest organizers to let those who wanted to go home leave and allow the rest to continue on their permitted route. The march proceeded through Adams Morgan before circling back down 16th Street to return to the White House.

Ramsey said he wanted to negotiate before making any arrests. "They have a right to protest," he said.

Organizers with the antiwar coalition International ANSWER, which called for the demonstration, said the march drew about 2,000. Sgt. Joe Gentile, a spokesman for the D.C. police, would not give a crowd estimate.

Police made their first arrest about 3 p.m. in the 1800 block of California Avenue NW. The protester, whose name was not immediately released, was charged with two counts of assault on police after allegedly pushing one officer who was riding a bicycle into another, causing them both to fall to the ground.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer and ANSWER organizer, said that the woman, who was a legal observer to the march, did not assault anyone. Police "pulled her out of the march and yanked her to the ground," Verheyden-Hilliard said. She said her public interest law firm is evaluating whether to take legal action against police for "illegal assaults" on demonstrators.

About 7:30 p.m., as the crowd dwindled to about 50, D.C. police arrested eight people on H Street near the White House, while authorities tried to reopen the street. Protesters were given two warnings to leave the street before about 30 officers picked up seven people who lay shoulder-to-shoulder holding hands or raising two fingers in a peace sign in a show of civil disobedience. Another man was arrested while standing near the protesters and pleading with them not to be arrested.

Gentile said all were charged with failure to obey a lawful police order and would be released after posting a $100 fine.

Park Police said they made one arrest for statue-climbing in Lafayette Square, a federal violation.

The demonstration was the latest in a series of antiwar gatherings in Washington, organized by a variety of peace groups, that have led to roughly 100 arrests since Monday. The rally and march were just a few of yesterday's antiwar demonstrations across the country.

The day began in Washington at Farragut Square, where dozens of activists gathered about noon before marching past the White House on H Street. At 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, as marchers converged in front of metal barricades about 12:15 p.m., a young man blared an antiwar Guns N' Roses song on a portable stereo as people chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, we won't fight for Texaco!"

As U.S. Park Police officers looked on, protesters pushed aside barricades and marched into the park. There, they gathered behind another set of barricades on the brick sidewalk across from the closed section of Pennsylvania Avenue and the White House fence. A large contingent of Park Police and uniformed Secret Service officers on foot, motorcycles and horseback lined the street and the White House side of the sidewalk, many in riot helmets.

The protest drew a variety of activists: youths with black bandannas over their faces waving the black flag of anarchy; middle-aged parents with their children; and longtime activists of all ages from groups such as the International Socialist Organization, Greenpeace and the National Organization for Women. Activists called the U.S. military's "shock and awe" pummeling of Baghdad terrorism.

Defense Secretary Donald H. "Rumsfeld and [President] Bush have decided to borrow a page from the worst nightmare of the Vietnam War, when the U.S. commander in the field made that famous utterance that U.S. troops were burning a village in South Vietnam to save it from communism," said ANSWER organizer Brian Becker, 50. "Now Bush and Rumsfeld are burning Baghdad, where 4.5 million human beings live, in order to save the people from Saddam Hussein."

Justin Beveridge, 22, an American University junior, stood in the park holding a sign he made the night before reading, "Shock and awe = terrorism."

After an hour, as Park Police on horseback drew closer, Becker and other organizers led the crowd out of the park and onto H Street, where marchers went up 14th Street. Along the way, a group of men, one of whom wore a T-shirt reading "Iraq first, then France," jeered the protesters and waved American flags.

The route appeared to be crafted on the spot; at one point, the marchers circled in on themselves at Thomas Circle before ending up on Rhode Island, where hundreds filled about a quarter of the four-lane block. People stood on their balconies in the apartment buildings lining the block to watch the spectacle. Officers closed 15th Street to traffic, blocking it with police cars, vans and motorcycles. A police helicopter hovered above as protesters chanted, "Let us through! Let us through!"

At American University, about 250 students, scholars and graying activists gathered for a teach-in against the war, led by Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who leaked the Pentagon Papers, the government's secret history of the Vietnam War.

Staff writers Nurith C. Aizenman, Maria Glod, Clarence Williams and Elizabeth Williamson contributed to this report.