Remaining barricades removed at Lafayette Square near White House
WASHINGTON - The remaining fencing that surrounded Lafayette Square, the park across from the White House, has been removed after being erected during the height of the nationwide protests over policing following the killing of George Floyd.
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Some social media users posted photos of the park that showed portions of the black fence being dismantled.
Sean Raymond, a program associate at Democracy Fund, tweeted about the "surprising scene."
"Final remaining barricades are being dismantled in Lafayette Square, he wrote. He continued, "Hard to fathom how much history occurred here in the last 13 months."
The park has been at the center of the controversy after law enforcement officers last summer cleared the area prior to a former President Trump walk-through. Trump’s critics say the protesters were ejected to make way for a photo-op, but an Inspector General’s report released earlier this month determined that the protesters were removed over security concerns.
The investigation released by Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt, said U.S. Park Police and the U.S. Secret Service concluded it was necessary to remove protestors from the park on June 1 in order to install anti-scale fencing.
Federal police officials did not learn of the president’s "potential" plan to walk through the park until hours after the operational strategy to erect the fence had been laid out.
Fox News' Caitlyn McFall and the Associated Press contributed to this report