During a briefing Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany explained to reporters, specifically CNN's Jim Acosta, that the police and other law enforcement officers have the right to defend themselves. Her comments came after the Trump administration was accused of having "peaceful protestors" tear gassed and physically removed from Lafayette Park on Monday evening.
"No tear gas was used and no rubber bullets were used," McEnany explained. "No-one was tear gassed, let me make that clear. That's been confirmed by DOD and Park Services as well."
"Let me go back and address what happened, there has been a lot of misreporting," she continued. "The protestors were told three times over loud speaker that they needed to move and what happened was it grew increasingly unruly, there were projectiles being thrown at officers, frozen water bottles were being thrown at officers, various other projectiles and the offers had no other choice than in that moment to act and make sure that they were safe and that the perimeter was pushed back because as we all know a church was burning in that very area the night before so the appropriate action was taken...It's absolutely uncalled for to thrown bricks. Absolutely uncalled for to throw water bottles that are frozen at police officers."
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The Pentagon has ordered forces and bases in the Washington D.C. area to "Force Protection Condition Charlie," a threat condition that indicates "likely" targeting of military forces and or terrorist action and the second highest alert level available.
The state of higher alert was ordered as of 7:30 a.m. Tuesday morning for the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.
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