#Activists tried to set up cop-free ‘BHAZ’ outside White House

This is what it looked like as protesters in the capital tried unsuccessfully to create an anarchic, cop-free zone outside the White House on Monday night — momentarily barricading a city block that they dubbed the “Black House Autonomous Zone,” or BHAZ.

Seemingly inspired by a similar, violence-laden police-free zone in Seattle named “CHOP,” masked activists were seen by The Post dragging materials from nearby construction zones and chain-link fences in an attempt to declare as their own the space next to Lafayette Square.

Protesters vandalized the front of the historic St. Luke’s Episcopal Church by spray-painting “BHAZ” on its facade while the boarded-up Hay-Adams Hotel also bore the demands of the group to abolish police and end systemic racism.

Outside the church, where President Trump held a controversial photo op on June 1, several squatters had moved in, erecting tents and tarps, while a free community kitchen dubbed “Earls First Amendment Grill” was providing free food for so-called “freedom fighters.”

Police quickly swarmed the area Monday night when demonstrators tried to pull down a statue of President Andrew Jackson in the middle of Lafayette Park, forcefully clearing the area and using chemical irritants to disperse the crowd.

By Tuesday morning, authorities had regained control of the BHAZ but the block was still covered with tents and barricades.

The “BHAZ” cop-free zone outside the White House.

Ebony Bowden

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In a series of tweets, Trump warned that he would never allow a so-called autonomous region in Washington and promised jail for activists who tried to remove statues of Confederate or other leaders.

The intersection at 16th Street NW and H Street has taken on great significance since Mayor Muriel Bowser renamed it Black Lives Matter Square in early June amid an ongoing spat with Trump. Protesters have gathered daily at the site for weeks as part of Black Lives Matter demonstrations sparked by the death of a black man, George Floyd, at the hands of white cops in Minneapolis on May 25.

Meanwhile, Seattle authorities are still wrestling with violence in the city’s “Capitol Hill Organized Protest,” where protesters have taken over an area downtown and barricaded themselves around an emptied-out police precinct for weeks.