Press. voanews.com
Washington
turned into a virtual fortress on Thursday ahead of Donald Trump's presidential
inauguration, with police ready to step in to separate protesters from Trump
supporters at any sign of unrest during the festivities.
Some 900,000
people, both Trump backers and opponents, are expected to flood Washington for
Friday's inauguration ceremony, according to organizers' estimates. Events
include the swearing-in ceremony on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and a parade
to the White House along streets thronged with spectators.
On Thursday,
police cars lined much of Pennsylvania Avenue, the parade route, as workers
unloaded crowd control fences from flatbed trucks, erected barricades and
marked off pavement with tape. The number of planned protests and rallies this
year is far above what has been typical at recent presidential inaugurations.
U.S. Department
of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said police aimed to keep groups
separate, using similar tactics as employed during last year's political
conventions. “The concern is some of these groups are pro-Trump, some of them
are con-Trump, and they may not play well together in the same space,” Johnson
said on MSNBC.
About 30 groups
totaling 270,000 people have received permits to stage demonstrations, both for
and against the New York businessman in Washington around the inauguration.
That number includes some 200,000 people who police say they expect to attend
Saturday's Women's March on Washington, an anti-Trump protest.
Trump opponents
have been angered by his comments during the campaign about women, illegal
immigrants and Muslims and his pledges to scrap the Obamacare health reform and
build a wall on the Mexican border.
The Republican's
supporters admire his experience in business, including as a real estate
developer and reality television star, and view him as an outsider who will
take a fresh approach to politics. Bikers
for Trump, a group that designated itself as security backup during last
summer's Republican National Convention in Cleveland, is ready to step in if
protesters block access to the inauguration, said Dennis Egbert, one of the
group's organizers.
“We're going to
be backing up law enforcement. We're on the same page," Egbert, 63, a
retired electrician from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said at the group's site
along the parade route. About 28,000
security personnel, miles of fencing, roadblocks, street barricades and dump
trucks laden with sand are part of the security cordon around three square
miles of central Washington.
A protest group
known as Disrupt J20 has vowed to stage demonstrations at each of 12 security
checkpoints and block access to the festivities on the grassy National Mall.Police
and security officials have pledged repeatedly to guarantee protesters’ constitutional
rights to free speech and peaceable assembly.
Aaron Hyman,
fellow at the National Gallery of Art, said he could feel tension in the
streets ahead of Trump's swearing-in and the heightened security was part of
it. “People are watching each other like, ‘You must be a Trump supporter,’ and
‘You must be one of those liberals,’” said Hyman, 32, who supported Democrat
Hillary Clinton in the November election.
Anti-Trump
protesters will stage at a rally in New York on Thursday evening. Mayor Bill de
Blasio, filmmaker Michael Moore and actor Alec Baldwin, who portrays Trump on
“Saturday Night Live,” will take part in the event outside the Trump
International Hotel and Tower. One of the Washington protests will feature a
haze of pot smoke as pro-marijuana activists light up to show their opposition
to Trump's choice for attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions, a critic of
legalization.
Friday's crowds
are expected to fall well short of the two million people who attended Obama's
first inauguration in 2009, and be in line with the one million who were at his
second in 2013. Security officials have eased a ban on umbrellas at the
ceremony due to a rainy weather forecast, allowing people to use small
umbrellas.