An Occupy DC protest turned violent this morning on Capitol Hill, and a U.S. marshal was led away bleeding from the head after a scuffle with several dozen protesters trying to block an eviction.
No one was arrested, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals. At least one protester was taken away by ambulance.
Yelling chants of "Homes, not banks!" and later, "Animals!" directed at the marshals, the protesters — who have been attempting to prevent the eviction of the resident of a Capitol Hill row house for the past several months — formed a human barricade this morning at the front and back entrances of the home in the 900 block of Maryland Avenue NE.
Marshals pulled protesters away from the home by their feet. They tore down a blockade made of plastic milk crates in order to remove the last two protesters, who were underneath.
Law enforcement officials then tore down the front door and began removing protesters from inside the home in the final chapter in the move to evict Dawn Butler, a renter who is being evicted after her landlord lost the house to foreclosure. Butler has been fighting the eviction by the bank that now owns the house, JP Morgan Chase, in court for the past three years.
Butler claims her eviction is a violation of D.C. law.
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