ALABAMA – Jason McCullum traveled almost 13 hours to Washington D.C. to attend President Donald Trump’s rally Wednesday, saying he wanted to be a part of the historical moment.
The self-proclaimed Trump supporter says he, along with thousands of other people, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol following what he described as a “peaceful” rally at the Ellipse where he listened to the president speak earlier.
McCullum shared video showing a largely peaceful march from his perspective, but as he got closer, tensions rose. He said he saw what he described as “militant” people, and then the after-effects of tear gas.
“I seen a lot of people getting tear gassed, a lot of people coming down tear gassed, I seen SWAT teams, after the curfew went into effect we had to make a decision to break curfew and risk not getting back to the hotel,” said McCullum.
McCullum said it bothered him to see elderly people and women among those tear-gassed, the closer he got.
“I did not like seeing Americans getting tear-gassed for exercising their right to protest, peacefully protest.” He explains he did not see all of the events that happened, but from what he saw it was non-violent.
“From where I was at, I was kind of in the middle of the crowd and by the time my part of the crowd got to the Capitol, the front part of the crowd was already up there and they were already tear gassing people by then, but we did work our way up,” said McCullum.
He said he feels peaceful protesting is a constitutional right.
