Videos: Outrage, Mystery Surround Active-Duty Troops Patrolling Streets of Washington, DC

‘We Don’t Want Those Things on DC Streets’

“We don’t want the armed National Guard, armed military, and we don’t want any of those things on DC streets,” Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser said on Wednesday - a position she reiterated on Thursday.

“The very first thing is we want troops from out of state out of Washington, DC,” Bowser told reporters. “If I wanted troops from Maryland to come into the District, we are a member of a compact, which allows me to make that request specifically to any state National Guard to do that. I have not done that for any state.”

Despite this, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper reversed an earlier decision on Wednesday that would have sent active-duty troops near the nation’s capital back to their home bases, including roughly 200 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division.

Then, on Thursday afternoon, Esper reversed his reversal, deciding that elements of the 82nd deployed in the DC area were once again going back to their bases in New York and North Carolina.

Now, after several days of increasingly peaceful protests that followed nights of rioting, troops and their war equipment have continued to arrive in the capital city, and increasing layers of fencing and other barriers now enclose the White House, where US President Donald Trump lives.

​Thousands on Patrol

On Thursday, some 4,500 National Guard troops occupied Washington, DC, an increase of 900 from just the day prior. An influx of troops sent from state guards has steadily flooded into the capital, coming from states including Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Utah, New Jersey and Florida, the lattermost of which sent 500 troops just by itself.

In addition to the troops are not only the roughly 3,800 officers of DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, but a bevy of agents from nearly a dozen federal agencies.

Among those patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital, according to CNN, are the US Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the FBI, Park Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), US Marshals, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Protective Service, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and even Bureau of Prisons Crisis Management Teams, which specialize in dealing with prison riots.

Active Duty or Guards: What’s the Difference?

DC National Guard spokesmen Capt. Edwin Nieves Jr. and Master Sgt. Craig Clapper both told the Army Times that there are no soldiers in the city under Title X active-duty authority, a part of the US legal code that spells out the role of the military in performing law enforcement functions.

In the 50 states, active-duty troops are barred from this role under normal circumstances by the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, but the District of Columbia is not a state, and so the federal government exercises a unique legal purview inside the 10-square-mile city.

While the presence of active-duty soldiers in DC would represent a major escalation, the line between guardsmen and active soldiers has been considerably blurred in recent years. For example, in 2005, guardsmen supplied 41% of US ground forces used in the Iraq War, and by 2011, more than 300,000 guardsmen had done tours in Iraq.

Telling the difference can be challenging, too: photos taken by Army Times’ Kyle Rempfer near the White House on Wednesday show unit insignias later confirmed to be from the 19th Special Forces Group, one of two National Guard groups that are part of the “Green Berets.” They were widely reported to be paratroopers by other onlookers, and Rempfer only confirmed it by way of a statement from a unit spokesperson, who said the troops were from the Utah National Guard and that “the reason they were selected and sent is because they were already prepared for deployment.”

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Disguised Identities

An equally large problem is that soldiers and police brought into the city are regularly refusing to identify themselves to protesters and journalists. Others have simply removed their name plates and insignias completely, and still others have taped over the identifying features.

Thaddeus Hoffmeister, a law professor at the University of Dayton, told The Hill that "as a general rule, members of the Army must wear an identifiable uniform. “The folks you see without an identifiable uniform are primarily federal law enforcement who don't have the same requirements."

Curfew Dropped After Larger Protests Defy Rule

DC has been rocked by mass protests since Friday, as tens of thousands poured into the city’s streets to demand an end to police violence and a lack of accountability for the deaths of black people at the hands of law officers. Prompted by the death of 46-year-old black man George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week in the hands of four white city police officers, Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupted first in Minneapolis, then in dozens of cities in all 50 US states, as well as the District of Columbia. 

Some 10,000 protesters have been arrested by police nationwide, who have been documented committing numerous instances of violence toward demonstrators. By Wednesday, all four Minneapolis officers had been charged in Floyd’s death.

After curfews imposed by Bowser were ignored by thousands for several days, the mayor finally lifted the restrictions on Thursday. 

By Morgan Artyukhina