The nation’s capital was braced for it was not quite clear what as a sizable convoy of truckers protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other causes bore down on the city from the north.
Hundreds of trucks and other vehicles gathered for what is being billed as the “People’s Convoy” are reportedly set to depart from a race track staging ground in Hagerstown, Md., but their aims, travel plans and impact are still very much up in the air.
An aerial video posted Friday night on the conservative social media site Gab.com showed a long line of vehicles on a two-lane road in the western Maryland city stretching out for what looked like at least a mile. A Reuters news account Saturday said the gather included at least 100 18-wheelers.
Organizers say they intend to circle the Capital Beltway and do not plan to come into the District’s downtown area or near federal sites such as the Capitol. But the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” of truckers that provided the inspiration for Saturday’s demonstration claimed international attention by effectively occupying the capital city of Ottawa for weeks and blocking major road checkpoints into the United States.
Police departments around the region say they preparing for whatever comes, and have upped staffing and monitoring Saturday as the convoy approaches. Metro is alerting riders to possible service interruptions and delays on a number of bus lines.
District officials say the trucker-protesters, which include semis, RVs, pickup trucks and passenger cars, have a First Amendment right to protest, but not to disrupt.
“What we won’t tolerate is violence — a flouting of our laws,” the city’s Homeland Security Department Director Chris Rodriguez told WTOP news.
Getting a grip on the size of the protest has been difficult, in part because of the decentralized nature of the gathering and the fear that organizers are not being candid about their plans. The truckers are also arriving just as the District, Maryland and Virginia are lifting or easing many of the COVID-19-related mandates on masks and vaccines that fueled much of the anger.
Several announced copycat trucker protests fizzled across the country, but the one bearing down on the Capital Beltway appears to have coalesced into a sizable fleet.
The 64-mile beltway is shared by Virginia and Maryland and both say they are preparing for possible contingencies.
“We remain dedicated to ensuring that individuals can express their First Amendment rights while continuing the safe flow of traffic for all travelers,” a spokesman for Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Thursday. “We anticipate the possibility of heavier than normal traffic this weekend and will continue to monitor with the help from our state, local and federal partners.”
At least one speaker at a Friday night rally in Hagerstown told the crowd that, despite the denials, he planned to be demonstrating in the heart of the nation’s capital.
“D.C., the government, whomever, can claim that they have all this opposition for us waiting in D.C.,” the speaker said, according to the Reuters account. “But that flag on the back of my truck will go down to Constitution Avenue between the White House and the Washington Monument.”
