E-Paper
Donald Trump, family sheltered in WH bunker first night of protests
The last time the bunker is publicly known to have been used was on September 11, 2001, when Vice-President Dick Cheney was taken there as a plane was feared to be headed for the White House.
As protests against the death of George Floyd, an African American man, in police custody continued countrywide for the sixth day, it has been reported that President Donald Trump and his family were briefly taken into an underground bunker at the White House last Friday as demonstrators had surged outside.
The Secret Service escorted Trump, his wife Melania Trump and their son Barron to the Presidential Emergency Operations Centre — as the bunker is called — as officials seemed to have been taken off guard by the number of protestors, the New York Times reported Sunday.
The last time the bunker is publicly known to have been used was on September 11, 2001, when Vice-President Dick Cheney was taken there as a plane was feared to be headed for the White House. President George W Bush, who was out of town at the time, was taken there later in the day over false alarm about another plane.
Friday night was the first time protestors had converged around the White House. They had clashed with Secret Service and other law enforcement personnel, defaced buildings in the vicinity with expletive-laden graffiti about the president. The next morning, Trump had tweeted about “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” that awaited the protestors is any of them breached the security and entered the White House premises.
Trump has threatened to designate Antifa, who he has blamed for the violence and looting that has accompanied protests in some parts of the country, as a terrorist organization. Antifa, short for anti-fascism, is a movement and not an organization. Besides, it was been noted, only foreign bodies can be labeled terrorist organization under current US law.
Security around the White House has been stepped up extensively with barricades all around to prevent protestors from getting close. But protestors continued undeterred for the third night Sunday. They with clashed with the police — chanting “You’re the threat” and other slogans — and vandalized and defaced of public and private properties around the area.
Among those destroyed was the Oval Room, an iconic restaurant a short distance from the White House, across Lafayette Park, which has been a frequent venue for protests.
“I got a call around midnight Saturday asking me two switch on the TV,” said Ashok Bajaj, its Indian-descent owner. Protestors had smashed the windows and were setting tables on fire. He reached there around 1:00 am (Sunday morning) helplessly watched the restaurant burn. His second restaurant on the same street, Bombay Club, just across the road, was left untouched.
“I have been here for more than 30 years and have never seen anything like this,” Bajaj said.
