Now this is where things get exciting. East of 3rd Street, Capitol Police officers were out in their cars and on their motorcycles to keep the crowd where it had a permit to be. The pre-defined boundaries were 7th Street on the west and 3rd Street on the east. That's all fine and dandy, but we were interested in taking direct action. And so our black bloc (pardon me, "Radical Youth Bloc") charged the line of police. They reacted as expected and tried to block our way, but we went right on through. We basically pushed the police back in stages. First we broke through their lines near the street. Then we took the Reflecting Pool, which was actually frozen over (we went around it). We ultimately pushed them all the way back to the west front of the Capitol itself, where the officers formed lines in front of the steps and set up barricades. We were concentrated on the more southern of the two sets of steps on that side. In other words, if you're looking at the west side of the Capitol, we were at the steps on the right side.
Standing in the grass east of 3rd Street before we began to rush the police line.
Some people locked arms, in preparation for a possible conflict.
The chant goes from "Show me what a police state looks like! This is what a police state looks like!" to "The people, united, will never be defeated!"
The black bloc rushes the Capitol Police's line of motorcycles.
The black bloc, after picking up a decent amount of people from the mainstream march, took the Capitol Reflecting Pool.
Shouting, "The people, united, will never be defeated!" we begin to leave the Reflecting Pool and continue our march east.
The Reflecting Pool was just a stepping stone. We had bigger things in mind!
We were on our way to the Capitol!
We are beyond the reflecting pool, and closing. The march is briefly paused.
We marched up the lawn and right up to the west front of the Capitol.
On the ground, I found a discarded sign showing a gas pump and the words, "Class war not gas war".
We have arrived!
We have made it to the steps!
At this first rushing of the steps of the Capitol, we shouted a number of chants, including, "The people, united, will never be defeated!", "Whose Congress? Our Congress!", "Stop the funding! Stop the war! What the hell is Congress for?", and my personal favorite, illustrating the lighter side of these events, "We want a tour! We want a tour!"
This woman's sign turns the word "war" into an acronym: Wasting Another's Resources.
The Capitol Police held the steps and that was the end of our rush.
As you can see, we were quite a ways away from the mainstream march, which ended way back at 3rd Street. Note the location of the two speaker towers near the center of the photo.
We start out shouting, "We want a tour!" When that chant degrades, it is replaced with "Whose Congress? Our Congress!"
"Stop the funding! Stop the war! What the hell is Congress for?"
"What do we want? Peace (and freedom)! When do we want it? NOW!"
From here, after a little while, we marched around to the southeast side of the Capitol, which is on the House of Representatives side of the building. This technically put our demonstration in Southeast, which is the one quadrant of the city where I'd never expect to see something like this. But regardless, here we are. To reach this southeast corner, we actually marched through a tent-like tunnel, which I believe is regularly used in conjunction with tours of the Capitol. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw someone spray-painting the anarchy sign on the sides of the tent. I was surprised, to say the least.
"No bombs, no tanks, we'll burn your f---ing banks!"
Approaching the tunnel...
...and marching through the tunnel.
The tunnel is tagged with the anarchy sign!
The group is now outside again, on the other side of the tunnel.
These officers appear mildly perturbed as we pass by their station.
