Letting A Situation Get Out Of Hand

Wash convention center

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Today’s Daily Caller posted a story on some of the events surrounding an Americans For Prosperity’s “Defending the American Dream Summit” at the Washington Convention Center on Friday night.

Videos from various news sources and people at the event are posted at The Blaze. A video posted by the Media Research Council at The Blaze showed a group of protesters fighting with convention center security guards and placing two children in the center of the scuffle. There is a lot of yelling and the children can be heard crying.

The people inside the Convention Center called 911 and asked for more police at the site. The 911 operators hung up on them four times.

The article reports:

“Last evening when we were in our dinner session, we actually noticed that there were protesters outside, and lined up on each corner,” (AFP’s director of Human Resources, Heather) de la Riva
said. “We were getting ready to dismiss activists and let out for the evening. So, I did place a call to 911 just giving them a heads-up that we were going to be leaving the convention area and that there were protesters outside. I did understand that there was already a police presence, but I was hoping that they would be able to calm the situation so that we didn’t run into any altercations. And, they [911] hung up.”

AFP volunteer Melissa Ortiz, who is wheelchair-bound, said she also called 911 to ask for help leaving the convention center. “I personally called 911,” Ortiz told TheDC. “They said, ‘are the police there?’ I said, ‘yes they are.’ Then, click.” They hung up on her too, she said.

This series of events does not reflect well on the District police department.

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