One of the lasting icons of the Women’s March on Washington and similar rallies in other cites is certain to be the pink, knit, cat-eared “pussyhats” many participants wore. The hats double as a response to the infamously vulgar comments President Trump made in 2005 to an Access Hollywood reporter and headgear to counter the “Make America Great Again” caps popularized by Trump’s campaign.
But among those wearing the pussyhats at the march here: members of DC’s Metropolitan Police Department on crowd-control duty for the second day in a row. About 5 PM with downtown streets still full of people, marchers walking past the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave. and 17th St., Northwest, just across from the White House, stopped to applaud the officers who put on the hats and take photos with them.
The images made for one of the more heartwarming moments of a weekend full of emotional swings. Seeing police officers embracing an element of a rally and march that brought out as many as 600,000 people, according to some estimates, was quite the shift from Friday, when a protest organized by anarchist activists devolved into property destruction. Police arrested about 230 of Friday’s demonstrators, many of whom will be charged with felony rioting. There were no arrests reported at the Women’s March.
Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.
