N0, at that time I was a civilian employee of the D.C. Metropolitan Police, answering letters for the Chief of Police. I had to ride bus into and out of the city during the disturbances (as I recall, the more radical of the protestors had vowed to ‘shut the city - and the Federal Government - down’ by disrupting public transportation); I carried a rolled up newspaper on the way home in case I needed to defend myself. I was warned by a uniformed officer in our office to be careful of using it, because the police had been briefed to regard such as a weapon, and to treat anyone carrying such as armed and potentially hostile.
I pulled my riot duty with the Guard earlier, at the U of MD, when we were called out with no provisions or rations, either. My unit was a Scout Plt., we had jeeps, and sent out for KFC by the bucket to feed ourselves. The planners had forgotten to include food for large numbers of persons, either troops or prisoners. No doubt the D.C. National Guard experienced the same failure to plan, and likewise took matters into their own hands, for themselves and the detainees they were guarding.
At the time, I was very impressed with the professionalism of the DC police, I was from Houston and was amazed how little violence came from DC metro, I had never seen cops that didn’t express their feelings with beatings, as a normal part of police routine.