DC Man Shelters Scores Of Protesters In His House As Police Wait Outside 'Like Predators'      

On Monday (June 1), Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced during a news conference captured on a C-Span video that a 7.00 p.m. ET curfew extension would be in effect over the next two days. The announcement came after weekend protests following the death of George Floyd turned violent, with some protesters causing property damage around the city, including setting a fire at the historical St. John's Church.

Also on Monday, President Donald Trump declared himself “your president of law and order” and said, “If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” CNN reported.

However, even as the 7:00 p.m. curfew passed, acts of violence by protesters continued to rock the nation’s capital amid peaceful protests in the streets, one near Dupont Circle, about 1-mile northwest of the White House.

The DC Metropolitan Police Department began enforcing the curfew by dispersing the mostly peaceful protesters using pepper spray, helicopters, and non-lethal flash-bang munitions. About 70 people ended up on Swann Street, about half a mile from Dupont Circle and in front of the house of DC resident, Rahul Dubey, a 44-year-old Democratic staffer and healthcare executive of Indian-American descent.

Sympathetic to their cause and sensing their distress, he let about 70 people into his home, to spend the night. The protesters were trying to get away from the police and claimed they were hemmed in by the cops in front of Dubey's home.

Dubey later commented on NPR’s All Things Considered, "They unleashed sheer hell on peaceful protesters right outside my stoop. I don't know, I just flung the door open. And I just kept yelling, 'Come in. Get in the house, get in the house.' Literally I can hear skulls being cracked.”

He continued, "It was a full escalator, is what it felt like, just pouring into the house. I was screaming, 'Downstairs! Outside! There's a backyard! Upstairs! There's bedrooms!' There was this bottleneck, and I didn't want anyone to get crushed, including myself. They waited for us, man, like predators, so they could arrest us. We were doing no wrong in my house. I even said, 'They're my guests.' "

When the curfew lifted at 6:00 a.m. Dubey’s overnight guests left the house, many of them praising him and his selfless act. The night neighbors brought coffee and pizza and, according to Dubey, there were some "magical" moments in the house.

Dubey had high praise for his visitors, "They were doing that with pride and peacefully. And I was proud," Dubey said. Some protesters offered him money and they cleaned up the house.

The unexpected positive outcome of the impromptu overnighter is tempered by the fact that the message of the young, idealistic, and peaceful protesters gets sullied by the relatively few hotheads and outside infiltrators, who indulge in arson and violence.