Washington police closed streets as a convoy of truckers protesting the government’s response to COVID-19 and other grievances clogged a major interstate artery leading through the nation’s capital.

Images on Twitter showed traffic brought to a standstill and Washington’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency said “demonstration activity” was leading to delays on interstates that parallel the Pentagon and run through the southern part of the city not far from the Capitol building. 

“We are preventing the convoy from entering the city,” Alaina Gertz, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department said by phone. “If possible you should consider delaying travel. There is definitely heavy traffic.”

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Hundreds of truckers, as well as supporters in cars and SUVs, have been driving laps on the 64-mile Beltway ringing Washington to draw attention to their calls to end pandemic-related states of emergency and vaccine mandates. They also want congressional hearings to examine the response to the pandemic. Many jurisdictions have already lifted mask mandates.

The Washington Post reported Monday the convoy entered the city via the 14th Street Bridge on Interstate 395, then continued to Interstate 695 before crossing the Anacostia River.

“Today we’re getting right next to their walls,” said Mike Landis, a People’s Convoy co-organizer, according to the paper. “We’re not going to go in and throat-punch them just yet, even though I know we would all love to do that.”