WASHINGTON – About three dozen people armed with paint brushes and poster boards adorned a fence Tuesday evening near Black Lives Matter Plaza with artwork memorializing victims of police brutality after the originals were destroyed Monday night.
Photos and video posted to social media showed two women and a man at the fence between the Plaza and Lafayette Square taking down the artwork Monday night wearing “Jesus Matters” shirts. Nadine Seiler, 55, who made a widely circulated post, said the trio claimed to be religiously motivated. They also told her they thought the memorial was disrespectful to President Donald Trump.
Seiler stands along the perimeter fence after work at least five days a week. After the confrontation on Monday, she stayed until 4 a.m. to try to protect the few signs that were left.
“[Monday] was incredibly disheartening,” Seiler said. “I’m so grateful for everyone that came out tonight to help.”
Local social justice groups, including DC Protests, They/The Collective, the BLM Cooperative and Occupy DC, gathered with community members on Tuesday night to reclaim the space. The group, populated the fence with more artwork than had previously been there. Unfortunately, needing to add two more names to the memorial. Just this week, Walter Wallace Jr. was shot to death by Philadelphia police officers and Karon Hylton died in Washington after his moped crashed into a car as he was being chased by police.
For Seiler, who is a Haitian immigrant, encouraging Black people to be politically engaged is what she considers her contribution to the social justice movement. It’s the reason she spends five nights a week standing at the fence, holding a flag that compares Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“As a Black person in this country, I think that because many Black people feel neither party cares about them they feel disengaged from the process,” Seiler said. “But nothing has happened in this country without it being voted on. You can’t be outside of the process and expect it to work for you.”
As the new artwork was going up on the fence, family and friends of Hylton gathered at the Fourth District Metropolitan Police Station to demand accountability in his death. They were met with teargas and rubber bullets. Hylton’s mother was one of the protesters teargassed.
WUSA9 recently revealed that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department purchased more than $100,000 worth of tear gas canisters and grenades in anticipation of election-related rioting.
“In law enforcement circles, it is widely believed there will be civil unrest after the November election regardless of who wins,” D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said, addressing D.C. Councilmembers at a hearing on Oct. 15. “Now is not the time to restrict the police department’s ability to effectively deal with illegal rioting.”
Black Lives Matter D.C. has announced that it plans to protest at Black Lives Matter Plaza beginning at 4 p.m. on Nov. 3. Other organizations like the They/Them Collective, have also announced actions for Election Day.
