Eyewitness testimony

I'm not sure the world is well served by jumping back into the details of that disgusting episode last June during which non-violent Black Lives Matter protesters were clubbed and teargassed, apparently to facilitate a Trump photo-op holding a Bible in front of a D.C. church. A new inspector general's report wants us to believe that -- oh no, this wasn't a foul publicity stunt; this was a pre-scheduled move to erect a security fence outside the White House.

Police officers wearing riot gear push back demonstrators next to St. John's Episcopal Church just north of Lafayette Square and the White House, June 1, 2020 in Washington D.C. (Jose Luis Magana / AFP / Getty)

But one of the priests of the church used as Trump's prop, the Rev. Gini Gerbasi, is still outraged and wants to us all to remember what she saw. It seems worthwhile to reproduce part of her passionate denunciation of the effort to conceal what she lived.

I’m one of the people who went to Lafayette Square last June in support of #BLM, & was driven away by riot police with teargas, & flash grenades. I saw the report finding no link between the clearing of the park & the photo op. Initially I was not going to respond...

“Stay in your lane!” is what some people say when clergy weigh in on political issues. But I’m an Episcopal priest; my LANE is truth-telling in service of love. My LANE is to call out sin when I see it. And that report – and the culture that gave rise to it – is full of it.

I'm not talking about the man who signed it. I’m talking about a sinful CULTURE that lies, hides the truth, lusts for power, glorifies violence, & rewards self-serving ignorance. That pernicious culture will keep spreading unless we call it out and refuse to accept it.

Last June 1st, 30 min. before curfew, I heard explosions. The air filled with smoke. In an INSTANT, police charged protestors, shoving & swinging clubs. People ran for cover, screaming. Police fired rubber bullets into the crowd; I saw a man who had been hit all over his chest.

The idea that this level of violence – unleashed in a single moment – was about clearing the space for a fence is absurd. This was not, “Hey folks, we need you to move so we can build a fence!” This was police in riot gear using weapons of war.

You saw it on TV – the sudden burst of violence, the President’s speech, and then that walk across the street, the smoke still clearing as he held that Bible. Trying to convince us that we did not see what we saw is gaslighting – it’s a lie. It’s also a distraction.

Would police have been justified in using this level of violence against innocent people if it WAS about a fence? Of course not. Violence against innocent people is wrong, period – wrong for a photo op, wrong for a fence.

The word Apocalypse means to uncover what was already there, but not clearly seen. That we were there on June 1st to protest the use of violence against innocent POC uncovered AGAIN our country's sin of racism, with its roots in the past but its chokehold firmly in the present.  ...

On June 1, 2020, the air was thick with smoke, but I could see clearly that what was happening was wrong. This report is another attempt at distracting and intimidating people with a smokescreen. I can see clearly through this one as well.

As she goes on to point out, there wasn't that sort of treatment meted out to the white crowd invading the Capitol on January 6. There's more. You can read it all here.