There was a violent protest at the Department of the Interior on Thursday with environmental activists trying to occupy the building and clashing with police.
Dozens of people made it into the Stewart Lee Udall Main Interior Building. Others fought with the police to keep the door open to get more of their people in.
Officers trying to keep them out had “multiple injuries” as a result of the violence from the activists and one officer had to be taken to the hospital according to the Department of the Interior. The officers also reportedly had to taser some of the protesters to keep them back.
I don’t know about you, but when I look at these videos, it looks pretty ‘insurrection-like’ to me.
Contrary to the description on the tweet, this looks like they were shoving the police pretty hard.
Dozens of people got inside, sat on the floor and tried to occupy the area. They claimed they had “occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” which is an agency within the Interior Department. They also issued a statement referring to the 1972 occupation of the BIA, where some 500 to 800 Native Americans walked inside the building and refused to leave for six days.
But this didn’t last as long.
The group also vandalized the outside of the Department of Commerce building by spraying fake oil on the front steps.
They want the Biden Administration to end all fossil fuels and have banded into a bigger coalition dubbed Build Back Fossil Free.
55 people were arrested in the incident. This was part of a five day effort against various targets in D.C. to push their agenda.
So I’m curious where the left and media’s condemnation of this violent action is? It seems to be missing.
I also find the reaction from the Department of the Interior to be pretty muted, especially given multiple officers being hurt here.
Listen to the words of the agency spokesperson, Melissa Schwartz.
“Interior Department leadership believes strongly in respecting and upholding the right to free speech and peaceful protest,” Schwartz said in a statement. “It is also our obligation to keep everyone safe. We will continue to do everything we can to de-escalate the situation while honoring first amendment rights.”
It sounds almost like she’s apologizing. Where’s the condemnation of the violence and injuring the officers? Shouldn’t the attitude be more ‘While you have a right to protest, nothing justifies using violence on the officers and there are ways to peacefully protest.’
This reaction from officials and media also seems far different from the reaction to the Capitol riot.
Where’s CNN’s Don Lemon to weigh in on this and tell us how bad it is to storm a federal building?
I’m also guessing that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) isn’t going to weigh in on this and talk about how fearful it made her, despite not being in the same building.