The protester who has camped atop the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge since Friday to oppose a war with Iran says he’s staying at least another night.
Guido Reichstadter, 45, of Florida, is on a bridge arch. He ran out of food on Saturday and water on Monday. He told WUSA-TV early Tuesday that he’s planning to stay another night.
The Metropolitan Police Department, which has described his protest as a “barricade situation,” said Monday that negotiators are remaining on the scene.
Traffic on South Capitol Street SE was affected when the protest started, but police said Monday that all the lanes of the bridge are open.
Mr. Reichstadter’s protest has attracted supporters. The pro-peace protest group CODEPINK showed up at the bridge in support Monday. Co-founder Medea Benjamin identified Mr. Reichstadter as a Marine veteran, posting on X: “we’re here to support him. To stand witness. To say clearly: we do not want another war.”
The State Department said in a report to Congress this year that CODEPINK is linked to influence operations by the Chinese government.
Mr. Reichstadter first climbed up the bridge as a protest against what he calls “the Trump regime’s illegal war on Iran” and “the development of artificial intelligence which poses the risk of catastrophic harm to humanity.”
Mr. Reichstadter posted Monday on X that the war continues due to “the refusal of Congress to assert its constitutional power, and by the continued submission of the majority of the US population to this intolerable state of affairs without effective civil resistance.”
The protest is not the first time he has made the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge his stage for political expression. In 2022, Mr. Reichstadter set off green smoke bombs from a bridge arch to protest Roe v. Wade being overturned.
