A 38,000 trucker convoy is heading to Washington, DC, from Los Angeles to protest pandemic mandates just in time for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address on March 1.
Kyle Sefcik, organizer and leader of the Freedom Convoy USA 2022, told WUSA CBS 9 that he is scheduled to leave Los Angeles on Friday and drive to D.C. The peaceful convoy will be composed of trucks and motorcycles and does not intend to gather at the Capitol. Instead, the convoy will protest near the White House and the National Mall with Christian bands and preachers.
“We want to be there for that and tell the president we’re here,” Sefcik told the local outlet. “This doesn’t even need to happen. If the president said, ‘Mandates are over and the state of emergency is over. Let’s get back to the world and let’s do our thing,’ then we’re not even coming.”
“We have to get the attention in the most peaceful way and this is our way of doing it,” Sefcik continued. “Do we want to stop businesses from being able to be open and people being able to get to work and school? No. We don’t want to cause this at all which is why we’re telling the president ahead of time to end this now. We don’t even have to come.”
Sefcik told the outlet that convoy could disrupt major corridors of the greater Maryland and northern Virginia area and roads that serve as a major commuting passageway and route for commercial deliveries into the district.
“This could stop work until the president says it’s over. People could not be going to schools,” he said. “We’re going to go until the president of the United States says the state of emergency is over.”
Being a gym owner from Maryland, Sefcik said the mandates placed on his business nearly forced him to lose his livelihood. His children, he told the outlet, were also impacted by mask mandates in school and are now homeschooled.
“I had people and the government and the school systems telling me that my children had to put something over their nose and mouth that I didn’t want to have over their nose and mouth,” Sefcik said. “I just want to be able to choose what I do with my own body and the bodies of my children. That’s all this is about.”
Sefcik’s convoy will likely appear in D.C. along with another convoy organized by Bob Bolus Scranton, Pennsylvania. Breitbart News reported:
“We will be along the Beltway where the Beltway will be shut down,” Bob Bolus told Fox 5 DC. “I’ll give you an analogy of that of a giant boa constrictor. That basically squeezes you, chokes you and it swallows you, and that’s what we’re going to do to D.C.”
Bolus explained he intends to provide emergency vehicles an open lane to keep inhabitants safe. “There will be a lane open for emergency vehicles, they’ll be able to get in and out and all that,” Bolus said. “We will not compromise anybody’s safety or health, one way or the other. As far as if they can’t get to work, geez that’s too bad.”
In response to the protest, D.C. police will reportedly be “mobilizing” on Wednesday by deploying about 500 officers to reduce the “civil disturbance.”
“There will be disruptions to traffic, that kind of thing,” Police Chief Robert Contee complained Friday. “I think we need to be very candid with the public about some of the expectations based upon what we’ve seen in Ottawa.”
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