D.C. RIOTS (Anonymous Justice Book 3)

by Boyd Craven Jr

  Washington D.C. 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Jan 16th, 2016

  On the third day of protesting, the number of protesters had swollen by tenfold, compared to the day before. At all five of the D.C. locations, a very diverse bunch of locals began joining the crowd of BLM protesters. After watching the Special Report on TV, which was still being played over and over again on all of the news channels, practically everyone within walking distance came out to see what was up. Most of them were men, and most seemed pretty pissed off. The police had to set up roadblocks at the next corner in both directions in front of the mosque. Gawkers had been driving through, paying more attention to what was going on than where they were driving. Somebody was going to get hurt! The officers assigned to duty there called in for more help. They estimated that they were outnumbered 200 to 1.

  The same news crews as the day before were there, and seemed to be eating it up. It was like they could smell blood in the water. Their questions were a bit more blunt than before, and the swelling crowd was more than happy to talk to them.

  These local protesters, not being educated as to how to conduct a legal protest, and likely not caring too much, began getting more and more boisterous as time passed. The media, seeing an opportunity, began singling the troublemakers out and interviewing them. Their ideology was all over the map, but the majority just spewed uneducated hate-speech, directed at all Muslims in general.

  “Excuse me sir, what’s going on here?” a reporter named Miller asked a middle aged white man in a camouflage jacket.

  “We’re going to run these dirt-bags outta here, and send ‘em back to the big sandbox where they belong,” the man answered.

  “I see,” said the reporter. “And how exactly does one accomplish that?”

  “Easy,” the man replied, “we’ll make their life hell, and hound ‘em every day until they get sick of it and leave!”

  “No we will not!” shouted a nearby black woman. “We are here conducting a peaceful, sanctioned protest, asking hard questions that need honest and truthful answers.”

  “You might be,” yelled another younger Hispanic man in a Carhartt hat and coat, loud enough to be heard over the din, “but we’re here to kick their ass! You’d better get to the back of the line, bitch!”

  “Sir please, we’re on live TV. Watch your language,” the reporter requested. He turned and took a few steps away from him, to a small group of protesters who were unsuccessfully attempting to question anyone going in or out about their thoughts on slavery, Salafism, and Sharia law in general.

  Behind the reporter and his sound tech named Clay, the protesters they’d just talked to were pushing one another around, and arguing about the purpose of the gathering. Two large black guys had turned in defense of the black woman.

  “Hey man, watch that mouth when you’re talking to a lady,” said the taller of the two, putting his big hand flat on the Hispanic guy’s chest and launching him backwards.

  He landed hard on the back of the white guy in the camo. “Fuckin’ Spic! Watch what the hell you're doing!” he growled, putting his elbow right in the face of the smaller Hispanic guy. He went down like a limp rag, which drew the attention of his friends.

  The reporter named Miller moved away further yet, so they wouldn’t become involved if a fight broke out, and blow their cover. As he watched the fight picking up steam, he saw a blue and purple knit cap with matching mittens on either side of a camera, jostling for position.

  Shit. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

  Moving quickly, he skirted the fight and put his hand on the right arm of girl with the camera to get her attention and said, “Come on! You two come with me,” in his practiced mean cop voice. Like two little school girls getting sent to the principal's office, they followed him. “I know you girls are inexperienced, but that right there is how you get hurt or killed! When grown men are fighting, small women need to get the hell out of the way.” That came out in his mad uncle voice. “What’re your names anyhow?”

  “Kat,” said the girl with the camera, “and this is my friend Julie. Why?”

  “Follow me,” Miller said, in his normal voice. He walked to the bus bench ten yards behind the scuffle. He held out his hand to Kat, who just looked at him funny.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Climb up here. Stand on this. That kind of action is what zoom lenses are for,” Miller explained.

  Kat allowed him to help her up, to where she could now see perfectly. “Thank you!” she said, as she raised her camera up.

  “You’re obviously the spotter/bodyguard,” he said to Julie. “You stand behind the bench, but off to the side of her, holding it steady, and keep watch for anyone that remotely looks like they’ll come close to her, while she has her face stuffed in that viewfinder. If that happens, you jerk her right down from there. And pull your jacket down in back. Your gun’s showing.”

  Julie’s face reddened a little at her mistake, but she thanked Miller for his advice. Miller and Clay both nodded, and moved further down the sidewalk, to observe who, if anyone, was going to step up to this mess, before it got out of hand.

  “It’s hard to not do anything, isn’t it?” Clay asked.

  “Yeah. I could never do this job. I’d get myself arrested for busting heads of idiots like those guys fighting.”

  Just about the time Miller was deciding to get one of the patrolmen from one side or the other, someone behind and to the left of the girls started yelling, “Fire! Fire! The church is on fire! The Victorious Believers church is on fire!” He was pointing to a predominantly black Baptist based church across the street and down a couple buildings from the mosque.

  Miller fumbled for his cell phone, and put in the call to 911, forgetting his cover and using his title and real name. “Shit. You think anyone heard me?” he asked Clay.

  “Nope. No chance,” he answered. “Look.” He pointed at Kat and Julie. Kat had turned around and was recording the fire, while Julie now stood in front of her, leaving Kat’s back exposed. A man in a brown leather bombardier coat approached them and said something to them. At least he realized that everyone had turned around and now they were in the front. Miller was relieved. Those girls seemed clueless. The crowd began pushing against their backs, and the man named Richard Yates got them both moving.

  Kat grabbed Julie’s hand and said, “C’mon! We gotta move!” Looking to her right, towards home, she could see that the fight was now huge, and raging right in the middle of the street.

  “This way,” Yates yelled, and the three of them pushed their way through the crowd to the left. Directly in front of the church now, they saw another fight going on. A pair of Muslim men had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, while attempting to go to the mosque, and were being blamed for torching the Baptist church. Whether they had or not, Yates would later learn they had been beaten to death.

  Behind them, they could hear sirens and air horns blaring. Fire and rescue were attempting to come down the street, but there were about a thousand people in the way, most of them actively fighting.

  * * *

  The four officers at that end of the street, having already called the fight in, began trying their best to clear people out of the way of the first fire truck. Knowing that they had zero chance against this many people fighting, they began spraying pepper spray over the heads of everyone. The effect was simply that anyone who got it in their eyes or lungs, got their butt beat by those who hadn’t - badly. The officer’s canisters emptied out quickly anyhow.

  The four officers from the opposite end of the street had made their way to assist the first four. They too emptied their pepper spray on the crowd, and then all eight of them pulled out their batons and Tasers, retreating to a safer position until help arrived.

  When the riot squad arrived with shields and helmets, they formed a line across the road just in front of the fire truck. As they advanced, the truck followed. The original eight officers walked just behind the shields, four on each side
, tasers out to protect their backs.

  They crashed into those fighting hard enough to knock them down, and gave anyone they could reach a good whack with their batons. They also thumped the front of their shields with them in unison which, as they’d been taught, had a frightening effect on those directly in front of them. That allowed them to make some serious headway for the fire trucks. Loud speakers announced that the permit for the protest was officially revoked, and anyone who didn’t leave was subject to arrest.

  That did it for the BLM crowd. They understood that they’d already screwed up, and there’d be hell to pay for it within their organization. They dropped their signs and started walking away from the police together.

  * * *

  Miller and Clay had not identified themselves to anyone, and backed up with the gaggle of news crews far enough to allow the fire department to do their job.

  “What a damn shame,” Clay said to Miller. “That’s gonna be a total loss now, because they couldn’t get to it.”

  He was, of course, referring to the church, which was now fully enveloped with flames coming through the roof higher than the surrounding trees. The first thing the fire department did was to wet down the buildings on either side. One was a residential duplex, the other an appliance repair store. It only made sense to contain the fire, and let it burn itself out at this point. Utilities showed up to shut off electricity and gas, with the firemen assisting them.

  As the fire department did their job, rescue began the task of tending to the wounded from the fight. Some had been dragged by their collars to the sidewalk, out of the way of emergency vehicles and paddy wagons that had come to haul off those arrested. Many were only bruised and bleeding, but two Middle Easterners and four black men lay dead in the street. The news crews were busy videoing everything, and interviewing anyone that could talk. The site spokesperson for BLM expressed sorrow that some people had turned this into a violent situation, and assured everyone that it was not their intent, whatsoever. She said that they were all packing up and going home, and she had hopes that none of the other sites around the country had to experience anything like this. They represented only a small fraction of the people out there.

  As dusk began to settle over D.C., most of those not fighting each other turned right at the end of the block, to go over one street and come back down the other side.

  * * *

  Yates led the two girls to the end of the street, then right two blocks, and right again two blocks, to Julie’s front door. He waited until they were inside before he left them, like any gentleman would, and then he turned around and headed home himself.

  * * *

  Reporters followed some of the injured to the hospital emergency door. “Excuse me miss? What’s going on here? Why are all of these people hurt? Was there an accident?” one asked.

  “No. HELL NO! This was no accident. This was the white police again, beating on peaceful black protesters! We just joined the Black Lives Matter protest at that mosque up off 4th and all of a sudden, they came down the street in riot gear, sprayed us with mace, and beat anyone that fell with their clubs. I think they even killed some of us!” she responded.

  Of course, this went on the air immediately, followed by a video of the riot squad line coming down the street thumping their shields, followed by images of several dead bodies being dragged off the street.

  “That’s so not what happened,” said a female reporter who was there for a cut foot that had happened when she’d stepped on a broken piece of a bottle. Her bodyguard laughed.

  “What d’ya mean? It’s right there on the TV! It must be true, right?”

  “Don’t even get me started,” she growled at him. “As soon as I get back to the set, I’ll set this straight.”

  “Betcha five bucks? They’re not going to let you ruin a story like this with the truth!”

  * * *

  In the Anonymous Justice group:

  [Julie Doe] Man, you guys! What a difference there was at the protest at the mosque off 4th today! My friend and I were getting some news crew experience around the edges, and we almost got sucked right into a huge street fight that broke out. If it hadn’t been for a nice old dude that warned us and helped us get out of there, we’d have been toast!

  [Dustin Harris] How many people were there today?

  “How many people you think were there Kat? Like five hundred?”

  “Ha! No, I heard that one news guy that pulled us out of the crowd say fifteen hundred!”

  [Julie Doe] My friend says fifteen hundred. Mixed race, mostly men today.

  A nice old dude, huh? Yates thought. I ain’t that damn old! At least they didn’t say an old creeper.

  He couldn’t say a thing in his own defense though, without giving away his anonymity to the girls.

  It just isn’t worth that. What a small world, them being members here though! And Julie Doe was packing…

  “Don’t tell them my name please,” Kat asked.

  “No way! I’m smarter than that,” Julie told her. “None of them know who J. Doe is either. Get it?”

  “Yes, of course. Duh.”

  [Dustin Harris] The news is saying that white police busted up some peaceful black protesters real good. They say a few were even killed. Did you see any of that Julie Doe?

  [Julie Doe] No. Not at all. When we left, there were only eight police there, four at each end of the street, and they weren’t doing anything to anybody, that we saw. That must have happened after we left, but I can guarantee you, they were NOT peaceful protesters today! It was fist-fight city, right in the middle of the street. We saw it start. Some guy cussed at some woman, a big guy pushed him and told him to shut up. Another guy elbowed him, and all hell broke loose! The cops had absolutely nothing to do with that. In fact, from where they were, I’m sure that they couldn’t even see it happening, until it got out of control. I’ll upload some of it.

  She does.

  [AJ] Julie Doe, that man that insisted that you follow him away from the fight that you caught in your camera, posing as a reporter, is actually Detective Miller of the Hamtramck PD. I know him by sight from other videos. I’ll bet the guy with him isn’t who he claims to be either. I’m going to do some facial recognition work on your video, and any from others in the crowd to see just who all was present.

  “Are you kidding me?” Kat laughed. “Was anybody there really who they said they were?”

  “Yeah. You,” Julie answered.

  [Julie Doe] Wow! Thanks AJ. We have a lot to learn I guess.

  [AJ] You should heed his warning when it comes to trouble. You were too close. Other than that, you did a great job getting very clear video.

  [Julie Doe] Uh, that would be my friend’s work, who for now, wishes to remain un-named.

  [AJ] Any of you that would like to help find video pertaining to those allegedly killed at that site today, could post links to anything right here. Not media blather, but real video from the crowd itself.

  [J Durham] Hey everyone, I just walked by the mosque off 4th on my way back to our store. The riot squad has forced the protesters to move off the street, because they got in a fight and wouldn’t let the fire trucks down the street when the Victorious Believers church was set afire. It burned to the ground! Now the protesters have just gone around the block and are forming up on the next street over, behind the mosque. All of us shop owners are closing down and locking up. It’s getting too close to us on 4th in the business district.

  “Oh crap Julie! Is that this block?” Kat asked.

  “Nope, the next one that way,” she said, pointing to the back balcony of her apartment.

  Kat opened the sliding door leading to the balcony hesitantly, and then inched her way out there to look and listen. She could definitely hear the din, and see the flashing lights off to her right, in the distance.

  “Hey, do you mind if I crash on your couch tonight, Julie? I so don’t want to walk home alone in the dark now.”

  “Absolut
ely. Good idea.”

  * * *

  As they formed up in the street on the backside of the mosque, some of the protesters wound up on the blacktop, inside the sidewalk. Eight men from inside the mosque came running out to chase off the trespassers.

  “Do not think to set foot upon this place of worship with your undeserving feet!” shouted their leader.

  “Hey, this is public property thirty feet from the center of the road. Screw you!” responded the nearest protester.

  Immediately, the Muslim men attacked that man and those nearest him with some sort of sticks or canes that they carried, with great skill. The initial result was the closest members of the crowd running back across the sidewalk so as not to be beaten themselves. From the right and the left though, some of the more physical and aggressive protesters ran in behind them, and overwhelmed them in seconds. They had them on the ground kicking and stomping them in no time.

  The riot police, running directly across the parking lot from the original protest site, had to intervene again to save the vastly outnumbered Muslims from certain death, using their shields, batons, and fresh canisters of pepper spray. They drove the rioters forward up the street towards 4th. Many of the rioters had sustained injuries and bruises from fighting with the police, so their anger quickly became focused on them, and spread like wildfire. They forgot the original intent of the protest, no BLM members were present to remind them of it, so a rage against police brutality took over as the theme. The protesters began scattering over properties on both sides of the road on private property, looking for rocks, bricks, or anything that they could take back and throw at the police.

  Flower gardens in front of houses were trampled as rioters grabbed decorative rocks and edging bricks. Walkways from houses to the street made of pavers were completely demolished and thrown. Garages were broken into, while rioters looked for weapons or things to throw.