Safety Tips for Inauguration Week

Three days before the inauguration, D.C. residents are feeling it: crowds, traffic, buzz and security are on the rise. Street barriers are being constructed, plans for street closures are being distributed and details keep coming about the thousands of protesters — more than 200,000 — and security personnel — up to 30,000 — headed to town.

Yesterday, Jan. 16, the Secret Service designated the inauguration a “National Special Security Event.”

Organizations representing newspeople seem especially spooked by it all. The emergency response team at the Committee to Protect Journalists, which usually focuses on imprisoned journalists and freedom of the press issues abroad, just issued a safety advisory for journalists in Washington. The concern is that journalists and editors will be caught up in violence or even targeted.

Their “stay safe” tips, also relevant to the general public, include:

• Ensure you have a full battery on your mobile phone.

• Wherever you are, plan an evacuation route and a rendezvous point with others in case of an emergency.

• Wear clothing and footwear that allows you to move swiftly.

• Be aware of the people around you and read their body language as well as your own to “identify an aggressor.”

• If confronted with an aggressor, use open hand gestures and talk in a calming manner.

• Do not take pictures of aggressive individuals — it can escalate a situation.

• Keep at least an extended arm’s length away from a threat; back away firmly without aggression.

• If cornered and in danger, shout.

• Report any aggression to the authorities.

A protesters’ guide to dealing with police in D.C. during inaugural activities has been created by the District Council’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, the D.C. chapter of the ACLU and Law 4 Black Lives DC. The pamphlet gives logistical information about where to go to demonstrate and explains the constitutional right to demonstrate in the First Amendment. “While police in the district generally understand and respect that right … it pays to be prepared,” the guidelines state.

In that spirit, the pamphlet distinguishes the badges of law enforcement officials that could be involved, such as the Metropolitan Police Department, Metro Transit Police, Capitol Police and federal agencies such as the Secret Service and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Tips also are given as to “what documents possible targeted groups — such as immigrants and gender non-conforming individuals — should carry for identification and other purposes.”

Among its guidelines on how to interact with the police are:

• Don’t make sudden movements.

• Don’t point at officers.

• Don’t get so close to officers when videotaping them as to interfere.

Addresses and phone number of local police stations are listed, as well as the number of the National Lawyers Guild Inauguration Jail Support Line. That’s “in anticipation of arrests,” according to Yolanda Rhoden, chair of the partnership that published the “Guide to Demonstrating in D.C.”

This week, the hundred-plus-year-old National Press Club is adding security enhancements to its two-story club rooms, located on the 13th and 14th floors of the National Press Building, 529 14th St. NW, two blocks from the White House. On Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, members will need not only a yet-to-be-determined pass to get into the locked-down building a half block from the parade, but a new machine-readable card. The new card will get them through a three-station security gate in the club’s elevator-reception hall.

The security gates, able to detect dangerous devices being carried in, have been planned for more than a year. “They have nothing to do with the Trump presidency,” said a club manager who did not wish to be identified. There have been more frequent incidents of strangers coming up the open elevators with backpacks to use the bathroom and facilities. Now, members, their guests and event attendees will be checked in electronically.