A wheelchair-bound attendee of a conservative conference downtown has accused a group of Occupy D.C. protesters, including AU students, of blocking her from leaving the Walter E. Washington Convention Center Nov. 4.
Melissa Ortiz said the protesters allegedly blocked numerous conservative attendees of the “Defending the American Dream Summit” from leaving the south building where the conference was held.
Political communications specialist Ed Frank posted a video of the incident on YouTube Nov. 4, which was later picked up by the Daily Caller and was posted by AU students on Facebook and Reddit.
The video has over 38,000 views and depicts Ortiz as unable to leave the center due to large amounts of protesters blocking the doors.
Chris Litchfield, the president of AU College Democrats, was present at the incident and was featured prominently in the video. He said Occupy D.C. protesters wanted to confront main speakers at the conference sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group.
Protesters gathered en masse at various side entrances of the building and across the street from the main entrance to force people out through the front entrance. They wanted to confront conservative notables such as former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney and businessmen Herman Cain and David Koch, Litchfield said.
“The purpose was to create a dialogue between the two groups, force conversation,” he said.
However, all did not go according to plan.
As the night went on, some Occupy D.C. protesters crossed the street to the main entrance and started pounding on the glass doors and chanting.
Gerald Wilson, director of public safety at the D.C. Convention Center, confirmed that all of the doors in the south building were blocked at one time or another.
“No one in this country has the right to dictate how someone leaves a building,” Wilson said. “My knowledge of District law is that is something that is prohibited.”
Wilson said Ortiz, a volunteer at AFP and founder of Able Americans, tried to leave the building through a side entrance with her service dog, Lucy. As she went through the doors, the protesters grabbed at her dog and she retreated back into the building.
“I wasn’t scared because I don’t scare easily,” Ortiz said. “But it was unnerving.”
Ortiz said she needed to use either the side entrance featured in the video or the main entrance to leave the building, but protesters blocked both doors, she said.
Wilson said every street level door in the building is handicap accessible.
Litchfield said he was not aware the front door was blocked at the time of the filming.
Litchfield and Jack Kiraly, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs who was also present at the protest, both said they believe they saw Ortiz and Frank stage the incident.
In the video, Ortiz does not approach the door. Frank only approaches the door to talk to the protesters, who cannot hear him over the chanting of the crowd.
“That woman had not been there two minutes prior,” Kiraly said. “They had brought her up in the elevator and just parked her near the doors and filmed and then filmed and then left.”
Frank did not respond to requests for an interview in time for press.
Ortiz says that is not the case. She said she had been trying to get out of the building through that exit and that Frank was trying to help her before they began to film. Ortiz said the protesters also followed her to her hotel while yelling obscenities at her.
“I was legitimately trying to get out of the building,” Ortiz said.
Litchfield was not part of that particular crowd, nor did he see the crowd pursue Ortiz.
