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I watched the eyewitness news for 3 hours. The church appeared to be on fire, but then it was reported it was a utility building across the street. The police allowed it to burn, as no other buildings were in danger, and they did not want to put fire trucks in danger. DC is now almost even black and white with some Latinos and Asians. The demonstrators were black and white and friendly with each other. At the 11pm curfew many left, trouble makers and mostly male gawkers stayed behind. Below are more of my observations reported at another post. This was NOT LIKE MOGADISHU!! Maybe Minneapolis from photos I have seen, but not DC.

Again I was have a quiet evening at home enjoying Indiana Jones and his father searching for the Holy Grail. Starting around 9 pm, WUSA9 started intervening when it was advertising time with information about the demonstrations in downtown Washington, DC near the White House. There was an 11pm to 6am curfew scheduled. The film was nowhere near over when media broke in at 10:30 and was filming action in the streets nonstop. Never showed the movie’s ending. We were told that POTUS was squirreled away the same safe space as was used for 9/11. Around midnight, the lights at the White House were turned off. no move was made toward the White House, but around midnight National Guard vehicles and horse troops began to line up.

A utility building in Lafayette Park across from the White House was set ablaze and allowed to burn. A fire was started in the lobby of the AFL-CIO building but went out after a while. Was this in retaliation for damage to the facade of a Ronald Reagan building in the same block? A car was set afire. After 11pm, the regular demonstrators began to leave the area, and people remaining were breaking more windows, especially in several banks, but also a deli, a clothing store, etc. Also setting fires in all the trash containers. A piece of broken plywood that had been ripped off a broken window was leaned up against a trash container until it was burning. Then a man in black with white writing that I could not ready picked it up and threw it back into a store through the broken door.

I switched to the “Peacock” station where they were covering looting in affluent Georgetown. Looting last night had been boarded up but boards were being ripped of and windows broken. I don’t know whether it was downtown or in Georgetown, but one guy ran in, came out carrying stuff, jumped into his car and drove away. There were cars driven into town from Virginia, and there were cars with license plates removed. Many were wearing a mask, many for Covid protection because social distance was not being observed, but a few who I saw actually taking pipes to windows for disguise. At one point during the day demonstrators were dialoguing with police and asking them for a show of support of their goals, and some police took a knee in support.

So far it is nowhere near as bad as the MLK riots, but it was significantly worse than the minor stuff that happened at POTUS’s inauguration day that I witnessed in person while downtown. I am going to print today’s statistics for Covid in all the states that is at Worldometer so I can compare Covid statistics for riot areas and states that opened in the past week or two with states that were quiet and maintained careful controls, during the next few weeks.

In a church building adjacent to the sanctuary...actual video of the raging fire in the basement room that served as the nursery.

“St. John’s Episcopal Church In DC On Fire”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AToNsqIdhAM

A Washington D.C. TV station (which we cannot post here) reported overnight that D.C. Fire officials have said that there was a fire in the basement at St. John’s and also said that the blaze was extinguished.

A reporter talked with the rector from the church who said the fire was in the church’s nursery and that it did not spread, but the room is just a burned out shell now. (A story in the Washington Post reported it as a small fire).

The church is across Lafayette Park from the White House and has been called the Church of the Presidents.

I watched the protests near the White House On FoxNews for a couple of hours last night. Until after ten o’clock, most of the people were just standing around. They looked like the 20 to 35 year olds who work in DC and go out to bars and restaurants every night but to work or school every day. For 10 weeks they have been told to stay in their tiny apartments (housing is expensive in decent neighborhoods in DC). Now they had a reason to be outside with other young people.

The mayor of DC had an 11 pm curfew. If she had made it 10, they could have just gone home. On a Saturday night, they should have been in bars and restaurants.

Hopefully there will not be a spike in C-virus hospitalizations and the lock-down will end.