One of the blocked exits last night. Notice the complete absence of police officers. This was shot more than three hours after the protests began and more than a half hour after initial assaults on guests had taken place.

Newspapers this morning failed to note what didn’t happen last night at the Washington, DC Convention Center.  Indeed, they failed to mention what did happen.  It’s really not their fault.  Things that don’t happen generally aren’t news, and what did happen happened after print deadlines.

But, as someone who was there, let me recap what occurred:

• Several hundred “Occupy DC” protesters arrived at the Convention Center shortly after 6pm to protest a dinner being held inside by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity.  (No problem.  It is the protesters’ Constitutional right to do that.)
• The protesters attempted to hold a movie night in which they would project a film onto the side of the Convention Center, but that effort failed for some reason.  So, frustrated, they hatched Plan B: Storm the Convention Center (Problem. They didn’t have tickets for the event.) That effort failed.
• Next came Plan C.  They decided to hold a sit-in in one of the intersections, which quickly evolved into Plan D: Blockade all the intersections, which digressed into Plan E: Blockade the Convention Center entirely so that nobody could get out.  There were approximately 1,000 people inside, a good chunk of them elderly. (Big problem.)
• The Washington Police Department, for unknown reasons, decided to allow all this to happen. What few officers were there – far too few for the record – stepped back and let the protesters do their work. For a full hour, while the dinner winded down inside, young, angry protesters were given free rein to set up human blocks to all egresses.  That included using small children as up-front barricades, presumably because security guards would be reluctant to drag away children. (Major problem.)
• When the dinner ended and guests tried to leave, some protesters physically prevented them from doing so.  A woman in her seventies had a clump of her hair torn out, and another woman not too many years younger was thrown to the ground.  She was injured and had to be taken away by ambulance.  Again, the police did nothing.
• Those who managed to leave the dinner were pursued for blocks by young protesters who screamed insults at them along their way.  All allowed.
• The protesters continued blocking the Convention Center’s doors and intersections for well over an hour.  Several hundred elderly guests huddled inside awaiting a more sizable police presence that never came.
• Then, a driver who had not attended the dinner, apparently got frustrated.  He plowed his silver sedan into a group of protesters, sending three of them to the hospital in “serious” condition.  The driver was an African-American gentleman and his Lexus had been blocked by the protesters because it was a “luxury” car. Only “non-luxury” cars were allowed to pass through the anarchist ranks.  Ambulances came and went, but virtually nothing from the police.  The protesters were left to do whatever they wanted. Soon thereafter, at around 11 p.m., they held a “mike check” and largely retreated.

• The protesters believed they had two presidential candidates trapped inside the building.  Mitt Romney and Herman Cain had spoken at the event and left hours earlier, but the protesters believed they were still inside (I was outside with a reporter who can confirm this.)  Trapping presidential candidates with Secret Service protection evidently seemed like a good idea to these aspiring radicals.  Had the candidates been in the Center, and had they been grabbed the way others had been by the protesters, the Secret Service agents would have been authorized to use lethal force.  That didn’t happen.
• For one moment last night, all hell almost broke loose. You had to be there to feel it.  It was right after the protesters were struck by the car.  For what seemed like a full minute, the unmistakable suggestion of violence was in the air. I watched two masked boys in their early 20’s itching for a target – to find someone and some excuse to start swinging at. But the arrival of a fire engine and ambulance snapped the spell. That didn’t happen.
• For the final ten minutes of the dinner program, Americans for Prosperity leaders coached the dinner crowd on how to deal – how to not deal really – with the Occupy protesters.  Instructions were clear, and they were followed: Do not engage. No matter what. Without that instruction, I believe there could have been a full-scale riot at the doors. But that didn’t happen either.  Cooler, wiser heads prevailed in the absence of police protection.

But it was that electric moment last night I will remember and fear most.  In that heightened stillness, anything could have happened. Thankfully it did not.  This time.  

What didn’t happen last night is a story worth telling.  

(UPDATE: A friend and Washington Times reporter Kerry Picket provided this video from one of the Convention Center exits last night.  The police allowed this to go on unabated.)

http://youtu.be/HcgcZrymkbE