Longtime observers see violent change in Park Police tactics

WASHINGTON — Few have watched how the U.S. Park Police deals with protesters for as long and as closely as Ellen Thomas, an anti-nuclear activist who anchored a continuous sit-in vigil day and night on the pavement in front of the White House over two decades. So Thomas, 73, speaks from great familiarity in describing her surprise at the force used by the U.S. Park Police and other law enforcement officers in front of the White House last week at one of the nation’s foremost protest spots, Lafayette Square. Through protests of wars, inaugurations and other government actions, Thomas said, “I don’t recall there ever being anything even remotely like this.” Trump administration officials, and a Park Police labor representative who also was an officer on duty in Lafayette Square over the past week, are defending federal forces’ actions. Jonathan Jarvis, National Park Service director under President Barack Obama, said Park Police officers are trained to spot and isolate handling of troublemakers in otherwise peaceful crowds, in the hundreds of protests they oversee yearly. “Officers did everything they could, as they were trained,” in clearing the protest space Monday, said Kenneth Spencer, chairman of the U.S. Park Police Fraternal Order of Police labor committee.