Frightening sights in DC

I was in DC for 4 days last week and every day at least once (but sometimes twice) a motorcade would go racing by with sirens blazing. It was made up of a couple motorcycle cops in the lead, then a couple regular cop cars (all with lights and sirens blazing) and then several black SUVs, with dark tinted windows. Then the last SUV had the windows down and you could see men in uniform with guns sitting in the SUV. One of the cars I saw had the guns pointed out the window! Then a couple more police cars and police motorcycles at the end of the motorcade. The cops would point at motorists to make them pull over into the other lane (even if the traffic was so heavy they couldn't move over). One motorcade rode up over the median.

The people who live there told me this happens all day long and they laugh that someone is late for a meeting.

I didn't find it funny. It made me feel like I was living in a police state. :scared:

Oh and I didn't find the armed man on top of the white house funny either. You can just barely see him at the bottom of the flag pole:

with the armed motorcades. Not good.

and those sirens were obnoxious.

the "police state" reality that's likely coming.

"OK, Frank. Now you go up on the White House roof to relieve Jim. Be sure to take a piss bag with you. And remember, you have to STAND. No sitting, and if you have to take a crap, do it in your pants.

Mike will be up to relieve you in 9 hours. Have a good day."

:eyes:

Hey, I stayed in that hotel before, during the Clinton years. It was much more fun, then.

The motorcade sounds like Cheney. The black SUV guys never used to drive around w/ windows open and weapons pointing. I'm no expert, but it doesn't seem necessary, just there for intimidation.

When I'm in DC and I see that motorcade go by, I always discreetly flip them the bird.

They claimed that Pelosi and several other high profile Dems moved around DC that way as well.

Yes that hotel was cool. We went to eat at the restaurant on top.

Oh and this was as close as I could get to the White House. They have it barricaded on all sides. I can remember when you could walk right up to it and that wasn't that long ago.

I recall staying at the hotel (Clinton years) and kept the window open (it was in May). Was trying to study and kept hearing helicopters flying over, wondering WTF? is with all the helos? Then I remembered I was next to my boyfriend's house.

The restaurant on top is great, one of those places everyone has to visit in DC if they can.

at the insistence of the Secret Service.

than when they tightened access during the Clinton years. The aura around DC since Bush took over is definitely meant to intimidate and instill fear.

The guy on the roof is there just in case a pizza delivery terrorist tries to deliver an anchovy-and-plastique pie to the pretzeldent. It happens all the time, I hear.

Everything is doubleplusgood.

is no reason to point guns out the window of a car. That is just plain unacceptable, even for the President.

Just goes to show what they think of themselves and what they think of us. (As if we didn't know.)

Bears repeating.

He made a point of wearing a brown business suit--in deliberate contrast to the military dark blue he wore as a general--to make the point that the leadership of the people is not to use force to place itself above the people.

I don't know if Washington is face up or face down right now. He's been turning over in his grave quite a bit lately.

It was much more crowded and busy, as I expected, but the thing that really struck me was the lack of access to so many places, the ever-presence of cops and other paramilitary people. It felt more like fascism than like open society.

It is creepy it is such a police state.

But as for the aggressive motorcades, that's a more recent thing, I think. It's part of the current executive branch's philosophy of "the rules don't apply to us." If Republicans have any power allowed to them, they will use all of that power and then come back and ask for more.

This is what we get with an imperial presidency and an enabling Legislative branch.

You can't get anywhere near the White House. And Cheney's house!! OMG ugly and friggin HUGE!!!

remember all the mysterious digging and dirt being hauled away when he first moved in?

Only a Republican could pass off cowering in the basement as fighting terrorism.

THere are many many many things to criticize cheney for, but he's hardly to blame for the fact that Congress in 1974 designated The Naval OBservatory as the official residence of the VP (Rockefeller chose not to live there when he was VP, so Mondale was the first; every other VP has lived there since).

for any would be attackers.

That job has gotta just SUCK. "Honey, time for me to go to work to be the bullseye."

I'm not just being silly. He's notorious for this.

Interesting.

You can own some low-capacity, manually operated long guns (e.g., a pump shotgun with a short magazine tube), but it is a crime to possess one in an operational configuration; you pretty much have to keep it disassembled. So armed self-defense is de facto illegal in D.C., for private citizens. Armed bodyguards are legal, though, for those with the $$$ to afford them. I believe business owners are also allowed to have armed security/staff, just not private homeowners.

just like a business, if you are willing to pay for it.

I remember the SUV's full of armed goons and enough helos to remake Apocalypse Now.

Whenever I had to fly in, I would usually take the Metro to Union Station and walk from there to the office (which was a couple of blocks away). If I had a large wheeled suitcase with me, invariably I'd get stopped by a security guard outside of Union Station and ordered to open my suitcase and have it searched.

I went to DC in the late nineties, and that sort of thing never happened until recently.

it was all-out no holds barred police state. A couple of weeks following 9/11 it was that way too.

or even seen anyone get stopped and ordered to open their suitcase.

but I've seen plenty of people being stopped and searched at the Pentagon (in vehicles on the grounds or outside, not in the station), not so surprisingly every single one of them were young men with brown skin.

with a large bag (his gym bag) and he has never been stopped, or seen someone who has been stopped outside Union Station. (I just asked him.) oh, and he's Palestinian.

I take Amtrak twice a month, and I have never had my bag opened, or even been asked a question. When I see these stories, I always wonder what people are doing to always get messed with by security, or if they are just plain made up. :shrug:

Last time I was there, they had four on the roof of the WH!

Try going to the beach in CA!

Helicopters fly over head night and day! It's soooo annoying!

:rofl:

I guess there were more armed men on top of the White House. Maybe they were taking a leak off the other edge when I took this picture.

:P I'm a bad ass!! :rofl:

Note snipers on roof to the left. There were more on the right, behind that white sign.


Does that chick in the sunglassess look undercover or what??

She was also following Cindy on her march to the White House the following Monday!

Doesn't the woman on the left look the same??

Can't help but be suspicious.

No one else is.

I didn't realize she was in the pics, of both events, until I got them developed. They were
saying on Friday night, Sept./23/05, the night before the march, that there might be a lot
of undercover in the crowd and to be aware of that. I'm harmless and look harmless; so it
seems odd to me!

for the pres and VP going from one locale to another, in a procession. Yes, the SS really does hang out the windows with thir guns. It's quite a sight.

Don't ask me how they know this . . .

that would be something new and unusual. I understand that they have drivers, but the SS thing? :shrug:

by the vehicles involved.

you almost never see Bush, by the way, he helos everwhere, and never goes out in DC unless he can't possible avoid it.

Bush has outrider motocycles that put down flares at intersections and hold off traffic, then two rows of Park Police on bikes, then two uniformed Secret Service cars, then two Suburbans, then three limos (two dummies, well, only one dummie, but two empty limos) then another suburban, an ambulance, two vans, a suburban, two uniformed police and two outriding cycles. it's amusing to see people flip him off, though.

Cheney's is much smaller, cop car, SUV, town car, van, SUV, cop car.

In case Crashcart's pacemaker goes out on the way...

at least in DC that I've seen. the President gets one because it took forever to get an ambulance from GW to the Hinckley for Reagan.

that sort of thing is pretty regular, except for the guns out the window thing. That i never saw, but it was certainly heavily implied that they were around. Funny story, my dad used to drive a black Oldsmobile 88. It looked sort of like "an official car" and people used to gawk and sort of crane their necks to see who was riding is back, only to be visibly disappointed to see me and my sister waving at them. Ha!

Welcome to DU! :hi:

Welcome to DU :hi:

Hubby's dad used to be a Navy officer; as a long-haired hippie college student, he always got a kick out of riding in his dad's car w/ the special sticker and getting saluted by all the Marines and sailors.

and that is funny.:hi:

To provide security to well-known political figures of all persuasions, the lights, sirens and visible guns are over-kill at best.

Given the proclivities of this Regime, however, I seldom go with the best interpretation. This sounds more like deliberate intimidation and/or a blatant display of arrogance. I also suspect that most really effective security is discrete and unobtrusive.

I think national security ran amok when during the 2004 Inauguration, people weren't allowed to bring a Starbucks coffee out of the store for fear that it would be a projectile missile against the motorcade.

I think it was the first time I felt like we were indeed in a police state.

to throw non-lethal projectiles (cold coffee, rotten tomatoes, etc.) in the general direction of their elected officials! :patriot: ;)

...and he was talking about the first election Bush had stolen.
The limo was egged and tomato'ed and the crowd was NOT friendly.
BOOOOOOO! THIEF! LOSER! :thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown:

Traditionally, the new President walks the last 200 yards to the podium for swearing in...
but Bush couldn't get out of the car if he wanted to keep from being pelted. :evilgrin::rofl:

The black Chevy Suburban with former college football types in suits, with guns, running convoy style, racing hither, thither, and yon.



And not all belong to the government. Private parties also use them ... often complete with private armed guys.

Congressionals use them, too. You recall Dennis Has Turds waddling his way from his showvoting ride in the hydrogen car to the SUV he thought was out of camera range, don't you?



The armed guards have been atop the White House for years. And it isn't just one guy. It is many guys. Atop the Capitol, too.

Lots of jackbooting in DC.

a driver..

I recently saw some guy walking around the streets of D.C., I have no idea who he was, with his private security entourage in tow. I guess that's next.

Hubby and I went out to eat at a neighborhood place one night and some dude (don't know exactly who he was, although I have an idea) came in with his s.s. entourage. I saw the same guy in my neighborhood CVS on Christmas Eve, so I guess he lived nearby. It's very weird when that happens.

I think that's standard.

It is.

and freeze in the Winter.

are the american people going to tolerant, they are stealing our country. just sheer frustration on my part.

to what went down here.

I felt like I was in the capital of my country under foreign occupation.

I couldn't believe the intimidation that went on then. There were armed jackboots at every corner and in all of the major metro stations. They were definitely ready to put down an uprising.

and there doesn't have to be any special event either. I had to go past some to get to the Library of Congress.

From http://www.mahablog.com/oldsite/2005.07.17_arch.html

Does that make Germany a police state? Seriously, I have seen that too but not all that many of them and I know they are there to PROTECT the average citizen and it doesn't particularly bother me, anymore than going through a metal detector does.

it serves to remind me of danger, kind of throws it in my face. And I think we are edging ever closer to the Israeli model of security. No thanks.

You know what bothers me though? Planes crashing into the Pentagon (my Uncle was near the Capitol and saw the plane), People sending Anthrax anonymously through the mail, Snipers running around shooting people at random and the knowledge that on other subways nerve gas has been successfully used in a random act. Those bother me a lot more than watching a policeman strolling around with a large gun. Oh yes and some hair raising stories from my Uncle about things that occured near his Capitol Hill home despite living near to several memebers of Congress

I was in D.C. on 9/11 and I know plenty of people who witnessed it. I saw the Pentagon burning. I still don't like all of the showy big guns. To me, they make not an iota of difference in the scheme of things, in fact, they solve nothing.

in DC there are sometimes police with assault rifles in front of congressional buildings.

now, cops in front of Rockefeller Center, like these particular cops are, would be, of course, in New York, not in DC...if you pan slightly to the right on that picture, you would see the red ticker about the NBC studios where the Today Show is filmed.

But the roof rats ran out like they were going to a party when the dude on the statute held up D.A.'s poster. Damn I miss D.A. I love that man.

he died tragically at a young age, but he was a "counter sniper" with the s.s. Very crazy dude. Followed POTUS all over the world. He was trained to kill with one shot. That was his job. He dealt with the stress by self medicating with alcohol.

if they were really concerned about security, they would be more low-key about it. Really good security should NOT attract attention.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

:eyes:

You are.

I've lived in DC for 11 years and during the Clinton years you had the same thing going on. Ambassadors, diplomats, Congresspeople, etc. all use the motorcades and yes, sometimes they go flying down the street with sirens wailing. Guards have always been posted on or around the White House as well

The OP is mistaken if he thinks this is anything new and no, it's not happening with any greater regularity than is normal.

the additional security was noticable and I did feel like it had a police state aura. Also, the barricading and the armed guards have increased under the chimp, especially after 9/11. IMO.

were done under Clinton. He's the one who authorized closing Pennsylvania Avenue, after all. yes, the perimeter to the south of the White House is larger now, which is a shame but it's not crippling.

and of course inagurations are going to be more intense.

and it made sense in a lot of ways, but it's still not a good thing, and truly, if somebody wanted to lob a devastating terrorist attack at D.C., they could do it, and quite easily. None of these things really makes much of a difference, it's mostly show.

of needing ID to get into buildings. Oh, you have a driver's license? you're fine then.

what a job!

and motorcades are nothing new! It is a joke about them tying up traffic. Motorcades are for diplomats as well as politicians and have been there always, democrats or republicans. There are indeed differences since 9/11. Obviously you can't walk into the Capitol anymore. And there are lots of unsightly barriers now that weren't there. And many streets are closed off that used not to be As for the guy on top of the white house..well there was always alot of security around the WH, its just much more visible than it used to be. But this idea that DC is under some kind of "Martial Law" or that stuff is done to "intimidate" people is just bunk. 9/11 really gave the Secret Service free reign to implement some of the changes (like closing the street in front of the WH) they had been bugging other administrations about for years.
Seriously, DC might be more unsightly and a little bit more awkward to get around, but thats the only difference between pre-9/11 and now and there is almost little change in these things between administrations.

I've lived in the DC area for 11 years and usually make it into the city at least once every couple of weeks. I agree with you completely that this is nothing new and screaming motorcades were just as frequent during the Clinton years as diplomats, ambassadors and visiting dignitaries use them as well (as you mentioned).

I imagine that most people who actually live or work in DC would laugh at the poster's claim that DC is now some police state.

There was a lot of intimidation going on around the time of the chimp's inaugural. It was very noticeable.

I also use the Pentagon every day during my commute, and there has been off and on intimidating tactics used there as well. I'll never forget one day I was walking through the metro station and there was a cop standing there with a police dog. A lady walked by them, and the cop wasn't paying much attention, he was busy talking to his buddy, and I guess the dog (a big ass german shepherd) smelled something good in the lady's lunch or something and he kind of lunged at her. Scared the living crap out of her. All I could think of was Nazi Germany.

that security jumps. I also have a good friend that works literally accross the street from the WH at the FDIC and she does have to deal with heightened security from time to time (not too long ago Chimpy visited the building next door) and I rarely hear her complain about security issues. In fact she drives into work everyday. I don't think she believes that DC is a police state. Although its kind of annoying to have to go through metal detectors for a lot of things, I honestly think thats a small price to pay for security...

it was very noticable. That was the the day before, I didn't come down on the actual day. I went to Clinton's 2nd Inaugural and it was nothing like that. Of course there was security, but nothing close to this.

It's a gradual thing, but I definitely see it, and personally, I think it's a BIG PRICE.

Clinton had some heavy security, especially after that guy shot an AK-47 at the White House, but it was light compared to Bush's, which became totally apeshit after 9/11.

There used to be more guys on the white house roof, but I guess they musta cut back because * is hardly ever there anyway.

I travel to DC for work several times a year and the difference after Bush took office is very noticeable, particularly where the Capitol and surrounding buildings are concerned. 9-11 was a convenient excuse, as were the "Anthrax Attacks".

I was shocked recently when, trying to find my teenage son near the Holocaust Museum, I had to go through a metal detector and have my purse scanned just to go into the coffee shop across from the museum. Its beyond ridiculous.

Although the Failure Fuhrer DID need five mile-long layers of various police, riot squads with meter-length batons scattered among the crowds and several decoy limos during his January 2005 coronation. That was the scene of the infamous pepper hosing and beatings of a few hundred demonstrators, which you saw only on the internet. Someone threw a snowball at Cheney's limo and the Securitate went apeshite. I even got into a verbal altercation with a few idiot supporters of the Failure, one who just kept telling us to (oh SO original) "move to France". Hey, why not? I'd only have to work 40 hours a week and my fucking health care would be government financed since their government has the brains not to waste all their tax dollars on a useless oil grab.

It was a scene fitting of a third world junta installation. I think that's very much what we got.

I've seen the Big Dick's entourage go screaming by on numerous occasions - the most recent being his early morning trip to his doctor's office at GW University Hospital a week or so ago- not to mention some of the lesser lights. But the best I've seen happened Monday of this week in the afternoon. I was crossing 23rd Street to go to the Foggy Bottom metro station, right by the entrance to GWU's hospital ER. A small motorcade was coming around the circle to head down to, I'm guessing based on direction, the State Department. It had a DC cop car and a stretch limo in the lead, one of the black SUVs with the light show going and the windows open with agents looking out at the nearly empty sidewalks and one of the small luxury buses bringing up the rear. Probably a minor official and his entourage from a developing country going to meet with the 3rd deputy assistant to the deputy undersecretary for cultural affairs. Coming the other way on 23rd was an ambulance, going lights and sirens. They both got to the entrance to the ER at the same time and stopped. The ambulance gave one impatient blast of its siren and made its turn into the ER bay, forcing the motorcade to wait. The limo driver was annoyed but the Secret Service guys in the SUV were pissed. They immediately leaned out the windows, scanning the 6 or 7 of us waiting at the light to cross as if we were all getting ready to charge and they were going to have to shoot. But we were all laughing too hard to have done much of anything right then. It was so nice to see one of those damned motorcades get its comeuppance for a change.

screaming up 16th street every morning about 5:30-6:00. There are many apartment buildings down that stretch, and a lot of elderly people live in them. It seems to me that if Cheney quietly made his way up 16th Street at that hour in the morning, when virtually NOBODY is out and about, people would be less the wiser of his movements, but what do I know? :shrug:

Yes, D.C. has become a virtual police state, and the barracades are omnipresent. Up until 9/11 you could still walk through the White House grounds where the tourists cued for the tours and onto the Elipse. It was a beautiful scene in the Spring, and I used to do it quite often.

I can easily envision a time in the not too distant future when there will be checkpoints established to get into the D.C., much like they've done in Israel.

:cry:

I saw it while at the peace rally in 2005. It read something like....

Dedicated on XXXX XX, 2004 by president george w. bush.


It sickened me to see it and it was the onlyu president's name I saw on any memorial that wasn't dedicated to them. Also I thought the memorial itself was the most garish, disgusting tribute to war I have ever seen in my life. It harkens back to Roman times. Quite a contrast to the very moving Vietnam War memorial.

:eyes:

You have something against fountains and bronze wreaths? The individual sacrifices from the 50 states? I've been there several times, and the WWII vets who I've spoken to there seem to really enjoy it, and are proud of it. Which in the end is most important.

How anyone could deem that memorial "garish" and "disgusting" is beyond me. You're entitled to your opinion, no matter how bananas it may be.

During one of the coronations, every pip squeak business crony and contributor had a police escort. Wise use of police resources.:eyes:

And the caravan carrying junior and Deadeye Dick have a van with a camera filming everyone along the route. They used to have a guy with his head sticking out the roof, swiveling around trying to catch expressions without adulation.

According to my co-worker who lives in DC, on either side of the route that this convoy is passing by, the secret service or police goes into the stores and do not let any one out until it passes.

I used to work next to the Chamber of Commerce, and there were a couple of times when Poppy Bush was over there visiting, they wouldn't even let us go to back into our office building.

Welcome to DU!!!

I used to work on Connecticut Ave right by farragut square, and we would stand outside smoking as motorcades went by, never hassled.

plus, I used to work directly across from Lafayette Square, and we got hassled sometimes. They shut our roof down completely during the Poppy regime. And a couple of times the s.s. came into the building and searched it because they saw "something suspicious".

but I have never been hassled on the sidewalk when one goes by. told to stay on the sidewalk and not jaywalk in front of it, sure, but never annoyed on the sidewalk.

Anyone who has lived in/around DC through multiple presidents knows that escorted convoys are a normal occurance.

And having lived in the area over 10 years I've never once been harassed or otherwise impeded from entering or exiting any location once in DC even when VIP's (US or foreign government types) were in the general area.

I spent a May college session in Frace in the late 80's. I went wandering in Paris at night and saw police/soldiers with machine guns stationed around various areas in the city. Not once did it even cross my mind to think that I was in a police state.

Go to Italy, and watch the Carabinieri, who really are paramilitary. fly to Athens and notice the terminal guards are carrying HK5s. Motorcycle cops in Mexico carry AK-47s. Customs agents in Berlin carry automatic weapons and have large dobermans. The US is nothing.

but, I guess when you come in from a flyover state and Sheriff Amos spends all his time at the diner, while the largest potential problem is cow tipping, you might think it's a problem.

I've been on streets when motorcades have gone by and on no occasion have the Secret Service kept people from going in or out of any stores.

That is absolutely not true.

They probably have their safety's on anway.

Being late for a meeting requires all this drama?

Only to narcissistic assholes.

Good grief. I've lived in the DC area my entire life and worked in downtown DC for nearly 30 years. More than half of that time my office was 1-3 blocks from the WH. (My current office is on Pennsylvania Avenue, three blocks from the WH).

I've been seeing motorcades forever and frankly there isn't much difference in how they operate now than before. Many of the motorcades aren't even US officials; they often are foreign dignataries. My guess is that several of the motorcades described by the OP were foreign dignataries. In the past week both the President of Vietnam and the President of Estonia were in DC.

The security situation around the WH began to change in earnest during the Clinton administration after the OK City bombing. Vehicle traffic was rerouted and incredibly ugly barriers were put up. The barriers have evolved over the years and there is now a pedestrial "mall" in front of the WH.

I walk around with a block or two of the WH every single day of the week and I never...NEVER...see armed, machine-gun toting guards. Well, once: there appeared to be some guards on rooftops as Jerry Ford's funeral procession went past my building. (I have however seen such guards in the vicinity of the Capitol and House/Senate office buildings). THere are guards on the corners of the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, but that's it. I have never been stopped on the street, had a bag searched outside of the relatively perfunctory searches conducted at the Library of Congress (on the hill, my briefcase always gets scanned, but never has been searched). Suggestions that DC feels like a police state or an armed camp are, to anyone who lives and works here, absolutely ludicrous.

There have been two times in my life when the above statements were not true. First was in the immediate aftermath of the riots that took place following the assassination of Martin Luther King. The national guard was called out and there were miltary vehicles and fully battle dressed guardsman in the streets. (I remember going to the Washington Senators delayed opening game that year and being shocked to see the Senators shortstop, Eddie Brinkman, in his guard uniform outside the stadium).

The second time was on and immediately after 9/11. I was travelling by train to NYC on 9/11 and ended up stranded for much of the day in Wilmington DE. When I got back to DC that evening (by train) I noticed the riflemen on the nearby building tops and was shaken by the sound and sight of a fighter plane roaring by. The sounds of jets and choppers was a regular feature of our lives for weeks.

Now I hear choppers a fair amount. Sadly, its usually in connection with a funeral for a fallen soldier at nearby Arlington National Cemetary.

Us DC folks are used to it. Part of the "you know you're from Washington DC when..." list is "getting stopped by a motorcade is a valid excuse for being late." Too many important assholes running around with limos and Secret Service agents.

"Eagle Base, this is Eagle One. The Chicken requires drainage"

You'll see a lot of armed men on rooftops.

fascist state--overtly so since the coup of 2000.

They have people like that around just about any high-target governmental edifice, in any country. I've seen snipers in tress in London. I don't consider it a police state mentality, ie trying to intimidate citizens. It's nothing new, and predates 9/11 and Bush.

We'd be complete fucking morons if we had some of the most powerful people in the world walking around without a security details. It'd be egregiously idiotic. It in no way indicates a police state of any kind.

Maybe you should ease off the coffee a bit...