Militarized and barricaded

I decided to venture into downtown DC for a quick look today.  When I arrived, I noticed that one waterfront area was being used as a stagging area for incoming national guards.  I spoke to one group of them, who'd arrived from out of state and its leader said that he'd never have expected to be deployed to guard against insurrection: "Sad," he commented.  He wasn't allowed to say where his group came from nor could I take a close up pix of them.

Then I went to my former place of employment, one block away from the White House.  It was completely surrounded (see extra) by the high fencing deployed across most of downtown, though no barbed wire there (I guess international development organizations aren't considered a prime target...). I pushed on to the Black Lives Plaza, where a small group of people was holding a half-hearted MLK celebration (see extra). Today is the yearly holiday in MLK's honor, but his monument is completely fenced off and not accessible. Besides, there's the virus thing too....

I was tempted to push on to the Capitol but I'd had enough of depressing sights at this point.