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Violence Erupts Near White House

Steve Herman

   WASHINGTON - Midnight violence erupted within two blocks of the White
   House on Saturday night while U.S. Park Police, the Secret Service and
   the National Guard defended a perimeter around nearby Lafayette Square.

   As pepper spray pushed back hundreds of protesters, vandals smashed
   windows of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in
   the 1400 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, and a PNC bank was vandalized.

   Small fires were set inside two restaurants by looters across the
   street from the White House Historical Association, off Lafayette
   Square, and multistory scaffolding was also set on fire in a portion of
   the nearby U.S. Chamber of Commerce building under construction.

   Several vehicles parked on streets in the neighborhood were also
   vandalized and set alight.

   The Washington fire department responded to the larger fires, but
   witnesses said local police were conspicuously absent as the vandalism
   occurred, some of it playing out on live local and national television.

   VOA's Turkish service shot this video of protestersnear the White
   House:

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