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A federal watchdog said Wednesday that US Park police were planning to evacuate protesters from a park near the White House long before they knew President Donald J. Trump would be walking in the area.
The Home Office Inspector General’s report concluded that “the evidence does not support the conclusion” that park police had cleared the park only for Mr. Trump, who walked through the park on June 1 last year before taking pictures in front of the St. The Episcopal Church of John holds the Bible.
The outbreak of violence in Lafayette Park, which came at the height of racial justice protests last summer, became one of the defining moments of Trump’s presidency. Demonstrators in the shadow of the White House were pushed back by smoke grenades, grenades, and chemical sprays deployed by shield-bearing riot officers and police.
The 30-page report of the Interior Ministry’s Inspector General provides new details about the decision-making process of the Montazah Police. The sequence of events described in the report indicates that the area’s clearing turned violent shortly after the park’s police were informed of Mr Trump’s arrival.
But the report’s author was careful to warn that it should not be considered a definitive account of the day, in part because of the involvement of many other law enforcement agencies. The Inspector General, Mark L. Greenblatt notes that it is not his business to investigate what the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies know and who may have ordered them to use force to clear the park.
“It was a lively review of everything within our jurisdiction,” Greenblatt said in an interview. “The unfortunate thing is not everything is in our jurisdiction.”
The long-awaited report issued an order from Congressional legislators and former Home Secretary David Bernhard to find out why park police were dispersing protesters and whether they had been ordered to help organize a presidential portrait.
According to the report, park police were planning to evacuate the park so that contractors could install new fencing around the area.
But protesters were allowed to gather there all day, anyway. Mr Greenblatt said that was because authorities were waiting for the contractors to arrive and for enough law enforcement officers to show up so they could clear the park. It happened around 5:30 p.m., less than an hour before William B. Bar, the attorney general at the time, to inspect the area himself.
Evidence showed that park police were not aware of Mr Trump’s plan to walk through the park until “mid-to-late afternoon on June 1 – hours after they began developing their operational plan and the fence contractor had arrived at the park”. said the report.
The report said the park’s police chief of operations learned of Mr. Trump’s plan when Mr. Barr went out to inspect the area.
“Are these people still here when POTUS [President of the United States] come out?” asked Mr. Barr, according to the report.
The COO responded to Mr. Barr: “Are you kidding me?” The report said, then hung his head and walked away.
A little later, the confrontation turned violent.
Other agencies involved on that day included the National Guard, the Capitol Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Mr. Greenblatt noted that the Secret Service began its efforts to clear the park before the park police issued their first dispersal warning. In a footnote, the report described this decision as “contrary to the operational plan.”
Mr. Trump issued a statement on Wednesday thanking the inspector general for what he called “wholly and utterly exonerated me in the evacuation of Lafayette Park!”
In an interview, Mr. Greenblatt said he did not appreciate the comment.
“This is uncomfortable for me,” he said. We are independent of any political administration. This is not a comfortable place at all for anyone in my community.”
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