The touted security at the Presidential Inaugural didn’t keep 80-100 masked Black Bloc anarchists from marching on the streets of nation’s capital and smashing windows without a single arrest Sunday night.
Police showed up at the “Black Bloc Inaugural” and caused the crowd to scatter but not until the protesters, live-streaming their chaos, caused property damage only about a mile from the White House.
As shown in the Stephen K. Bannon film Occupy Unmasked , the Black Bloc anarchists are closely aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement. While many in the Occupy Wall Street movement claim to oppose President Barack Obama, his explicit use of their economic inequality message during the 2012 election shows the President feels an ideological kinship with Occupy Wall Street.
Local News station WJLA reports:
Police located 3 separate locations of damage:
-DVA Federal Credit Union ATM at 800 K St. NW. The front of ATM screen was completely smashed.
-TD Bank at 901 7th St. NW. A window was smashed and yellow paint was thrown on a side window.
-Hooters at 825 7th St. NW. A window was smashed out by a man wearing a black mask.
The group also dropped pamphlets on the ground near the TD Bank. The pamphlets said, “Against Every Cop. Against Every Boss. Against Every President.”
However, a report from Anarchist News is a little more blunt:
Carrying black flags and two large black banners reading, “Fuck Every Cop, Fuck Every President” and “No President Can Give You Freedom,” the marchers chanted and periodically hurled stacks of pamphlets into the air.
This video shows the mob of drum-beating, chanting, Black Bloc-attired hooligans marching through traffic, smashing things and then being dispersed by police vehicles.
Anarchist News also details the Black Bloc’s message of discontent from the pamphlet littering.
This world gives our generation no future. There will be no American Dream for us — only a slow decline of the wallet and of the soul… In rage at the storefronts and surveillance cameras and police of this city, we present this small act of rebellion… The armed goons no longer intimidate us, the ballot boxes no longer distract us, the empty promises hold no more meaning.
If the “armed goons” are the Washington D.C. Police, then clearly the anarchists are telling the truth about not being intimidated.