Tipsheet

Amnesia? DC's Mayor Claims 'We Do Not Permit Riotous Behavior'

Spencer Brown
Spencer Brown  |  June 22, 2021 3:30 PM

During Tuesday's Senate hearing on Democrats' latest bid to grant D.C. statehood, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser was asked about the city's handling of last summer's violence, events Bowser apparently would like to memory-hole.

"Do you have a property damage estimate from the summer riots?" asked Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), to which Bowser refused to provide a concrete number. Instead, she responded with what seems to be an attempt to revise the history of last year when DC was besieged by more than a week of violence and looting.

"I know that we had one night of rioting in the District last summer," Bowser claimed. "We do not permit any riotous behavior, whoever is conducting it," she added. 

Sure, it was more than one year ago that parks and city streets throughout the nation's capital were ravaged by violent agitators, but the woman who was in charge of Washington and who subsequently renamed part of a street leading up to the White House 'Black Lives Matter Plaza' should remember the violence that rocked DC on her watch.

For much of the last year and, coincidentally, until Biden was declared president-elect, Washington, D.C. was boarded up either because storefronts had already been busted out by rioters or as a preventative measure against ongoing violence. 

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The walling-up of DC was so prevalent that Bowser herself issued a call for businesses to remove their protective barricades after Biden was sworn in. If, as Bowser claimed Tuesday, her administration does not permit "any riotous behavior," the people of Washington didn't believe her.

The plywood-encased reality for Washingtonians last year came after weeks of fiery violence damaged historic churches, federal monuments, dozens of businesses and retail outlets, and even the headquarters of the AFL-CIO.

The New York Times noted that violence near the White House "spiral[ed] out of control again" on May 31st. The Guardian wrote about how "fires light up Washington DC on third night of George Floyd protests" on June 1st. 

In total, unrest persisted from May 29 through the first week of June. Mayor Bowser declared curfews on multiple evenings, but those seeking to set fires and smash windows failed to heed her admonition, regardless of whether she's willing to admit the extent of violence that took place on her watch.