Trucker Convoy To Leave D.C. Area To Protest CA Health Bills

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The trucker convoy that has looped the Capital Beltway over the last three weeks to protest COVID-19 mandates is leaving for California, the group posted on its website.

The "People's Convoy" said it opposes several bills related to health and COVID-19 that will be voted on in the coming weeks in California and is going there to protest. While some drivers and residents signaled their approval for the rolling protest, numerous drivers and pedestrians yelled obscenities at the truckers when they drove onto crowded D.C. streets, and social media filled with images of profane gestures toward truckers who were told to go home.

Mike Landis, an organizer with the convoy, spoke to a crowd of truckers Sunday evening about the bills. He asked if they would want to drive to California and was met with cheers.

"We’re not done here, but we’ll go to California and raise awareness on this along the way and hopefully gain more people like we did on our way here,” said Landis, as seen on a livestream. “And then once we stop this, we will come back to finish this job."

The group said when it arrived in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area that it would not leave until its demands were met. Leaders met with Sens. Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson, both Republicans, earlier this month.

"They want the government to leave them the hell alone," Cruz said after the meeting, according to WTOP. "They want the mandates ended and the emergency ended."

Cruz rode with the lead truck in the convoy one day. "There ain't no ignoring a senator riding in the lead truck," convoy leader Brian Brase said. "That's basically an endorsement of what we're doing."

The group has stayed at the Hagerstown speedway in Maryland, leaving to circle the Beltway or drive on Interstate 395 through Washington, D.C.

Some days, the driving created heavy traffic, and Metropolitan Police blocked I-395 exits to prevent the group from exiting into downtown D.C.

An Alexandria, Virginia, man named Logan told WTOP he was shown in a video on March 16, wearing a helmet and pinned down on the ground by truckers after he "flipped the bird" at them. Logan said several drivers made obscene gestures toward the truckers and that a convoy driver tried to open their vehicle’s door to hit him. One person took Logan's keys, and the scuffle happened as he tried to grab them.

Bicyclist Daniel Adler, who lives in Dupont Circle, gained attention online and in the Washington Post for slowly riding his bike in front of the trucks on 17th Street as they blared their horns.

“I heard the stories of the traffic on the Beltway breaking up the convoy,” he told the Post, “and I thought I, too, could break up the convoy.”

Video of the slow-motion pushback against the trucks caught fire online, and he was dubbed“Bike Man.” Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel described it as “poetry in motion.”

DCist reported that Maryland State Police said they "wrote few tickets and made few arrests" related to the convoy, including one for an illegal gun.

The convoy leaders had planned to hold a two-week protest on the National Mall this month, but the group's application with the National Park Service was partially denied because of other events already booked during that time frame, the Washington Post reported.

Park Service staffers were working with the group on another date, location and the conditions for the protest. But the People's Convoy withdrew its application, a park service spokesman told the Post.