Above photo: Outside the Dupont home, police arrest the remaining protesters on the street.
This story was last updated June 2 at 7:21 p.m.
Nearly two hours after the 7 p.m. curfew went into effect on Sunday night, dozens of people were corralled by police in a one-way block — Swann Street NW, between 14th and 15th — as they made their way north from downtown.
As officers closed in on the group, they began setting off what appeared to be pepper spray and flash bangs, sending the crowd running.
“I heard ‘bang bang’ and a lot of thumping and pepper spray everywhere, my eyes started burning, people screaming, and a human tsunami coming down the street, of piles on top of people,” says Rahul Dubey.
Several residents opened their doors, including Dubey.
“I flung open this door,” he said. “I was like, ‘Come in, get in the house. Get in the house.’ The police were running after these 20- and 30-year-olds and grabbing them. They’re tripping, coughing. And I was pulling them into the house.”
The protesters stayed in the house for hours as officers waited outside. The situation quickly went viral on social media.
This is Rahul. Rahul saved 62 DC protesters who were trapped for hours on his block by police. He allowed them to stay all night, fed them, gave them water, charged their phones, and most importantly kept them safe. This was no party, the police through pepper spray canisters pic.twitter.com/ZDpNkfXsoa
— suckmyunicorn (@suckmyunicornD) June 2, 2020
On the fourth night of major demonstrations in D.C., local officials instituted a 7 p.m. curfew in D.C., following consecutive days of protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death. President Donald Trump pledged to “clamp down very, very strong” in the city.
And as people remained on the streets for hours after the lockdown began, they were met regularly by police officers who gave chase using canisters of smoke and rubber bullets. Helicopters flew overhead throughout much of the night, one of them flying low enough to the ground in Chinatown for its wind to rip branches from trees.
But one of the night’s most dramatic confrontations took place on and around Swann Street, where nearly 200 people were arrested, according to Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham.
“On Swann Street we had what was an indication of an escalation of potential violence,” the police chief said at a press conference on Tuesday. “We have somebody breaking the law in a large group, we try and get them arrested as safely and quickly as we can.”
He claimed that some possible lawbreakers may have gotten into one of the houses, and he called some social media reports about the situation “totally inaccurate.”
Dubey said the escalation started on his street, a narrow lane lined with gingko trees and hundred-year-old row houses, around 9 p.m.
“I was standing here on my stoop,” he said, indicating the wrought-iron staircase. “There was a police barricade, about 40 police officers that were on the corner of 15th and Swann.”
The barricade was less than 100 feet away. Things were peaceful, but police weren’t letting protesters out. Dubey let a few people charge their phones in his house or use the bathroom. Then, the atmosphere changed.
He heard chanting, “Let us through! Let us through!” followed by loud bangs, a cloud of pepper spray, and then people running through the street.
The police line moved to the front of Dubey’s door, which he swung closed and locked from the inside. His living room was filled with “screaming like I’ve never heard,” he said. “People were coughing. It was like that for an hour, they were pepper-spraying in through the window.”
People were splashing water and milk in each other’s eyes and pouring into his gated backyard: “It was an hour and a half of pure mayhem,” according to Dubey.
Twice, Dubey tried to talk to the police outside.
“I have 70 people in the house. They’re frightened. They’re terrified.” But he said that got him nowhere. “They told me to get back in or they’d f****ing arrest me.”
Eventually, he said officers came up to the door and began asking people to leave, promising they wouldn’t be arrested.
“We weren’t budging because there’s 90 cops with batons and shields, and you just attacked us right? And we’re going to send people out?” Dubey said.
As the hours wore on, tensions in the house eased a bit and protesters began chatting with one another and sharing stories about the night, expressing frustration at the actions of police, according to Dubey.
Spread throughout all four levels of the home, they began calling lawyers and journalists on their cellphones. Most of them were strangers to one another, he said.
“If my kid grows up to be like any of them it’d be awesome, you know I really think that,” he said.
Meka, 22, spoke to DCist by phone from inside the house shortly before 11:30 p.m., and asked that DCist only use his first name for privacy reasons.
“I think everyone’s alright right now, but it took awhile for everyone to stop coughing,” Meka said, following officers’ use of chemical irritants. “Everyone was kind of on edge earlier, but we’ve been here for long enough that people are starting to relax.”
He recounted how the group began demonstrating near Lafayette Square, the area that law enforcement cleared using tear gas before President Donald Trump addressed the nation around 6:35 p.m. — 25 minutes before curfew set in.
“I came out with a friend to support a movement against police brutality and racism in the force,” says Meka. “I mean, everyone here is pretty mad because we’re trying to demonstrate our rights given to us by the Constitution, and they’re taking those away from us.”
Dubey was not the only Swann Street resident to shelter protesters Sunday night.
On the other end of the block, Reed Doherty and Emily Mann began the evening making dinner in their basement apartment as protesters were headed their way from downtown.
“This is so like quintessential quarantine: We were making some sourdough bread,” Mann said.
The two had been at the protest earlier but headed home before the 7 p.m. curfew. Then police began making a bike barricade right outside their window.
They felt a mix of guilt and fear. “Like guilt that I wasn’t part of this; fear that our country is falling apart. It just was unrecognizable to see so many police officers on my street,” Mann said.
Among the protesters making their way up 14th was Tracey Redd — a longtime D.C. community organizer and activist who didn’t want to get arrested as police closed in.
“Ironically, jokingly, coming up 14th Street, I was like, ‘What if the police corral us and we have to seek shelter in someone’s house?’ And me and my friends jokingly were just like, ‘Oh, I guess we find the house with the Black Lives Matter sign and put them to the test.’ ”
Doherty and Mann didn’t have a Black Lives Matter sign, but they ushered him inside. Then Redd did something that he says comes automatically when interacting with white people he doesn’t know.
“I was like, ‘Hey, I promise you, I’m not dangerous. Here’s my I.D.. You can Google me. I can have people vouch for me.’ I realized that was like something that black people are taught naturally to, like, make myself look less threatening.”
In the morning, he had toast from Doherty’s sourdough. Mann made him coffee.
“The city should honor the people of Swann Street, for their bravery and what they did, “ Redd said. “Because the people we elected, the people that we pay to ‘serve and protect’ us, did not.”
Swann Street was quiet the next morning as Dubey — running on adrenaline — recounted the rest of the night.
“That was America,” he said. “I joked, it’s a Coca-Cola commercial, you know, a Benetton commercial. Everyone’s in there and they’re talking and they’re cleaning. They’re asking me how much can they Venmo me. I mean, are you kidding me?”
Kishan Putta, a candidate running for a Ward 2 council seat in today’s election, delivered a pizza to the house, according to Dubey. Others delivered supplies.
A caravan of volunteers came in cars to collect the protesters from the alley. Once curfew lifted at 6 a.m., that’s what they did, departing in groups of three.
“Right now, I’m going to take joy that 70 people came into my life that are fierce and that are dedicated,” Dubey said. “I hope they get back out there, and I hope they stay in touch. That’s what I’ve got to think about. Maybe there’s anger that comes later today, but right now, they’re safe.”