PA Trucker Caravan Planning To 'Occupy' DC Limited To A Few Vehicles

PENNSYLVANIA — What was once described by organizers as a caravan of truckers heading from Pennsylvania to Washington D.C. to protest the role of government in public life was limited to just a few vehicles on Wednesday, according to multiple media sources and social media reports.

The small group from Pennsylvania will join several others in Washington this week, where they plan a protest in a similar vein to the weeks-long event in Canada where truckers and their allies paralyzed the capital city of Ottawa.

An organizer of one of the truck convoys from Pennsylvania told Fox5 that his group plans to shut down the Capital Beltway.

"We will be along the Beltway where the Beltway will be shut down," Bob Bolus told Fox5 on Sunday. Bolus, who owns a truck parts and towing business in Scranton, was the lone 18-wheeler in the caravan on Wednesday, PennLive reports. A small handful of other smaller vehicles joined him, according to Buzzfeed.

RELATED: National Guard Deployed As DC Prepares For Trucker Protests

Bolus had claimed that between 1,000 and 1,500 trucks contacted him.

Bolus left from a truck stop near Harrisburg with his 18-wheeler, four pickup trucks, an SUV, and two sedans, according to Reuters correspondent Julio-César Chávez, who added that Bolus said he wouldn't disrupt traffic on his way to the nation's capital.

A supporter of former President Donald Trump, Bolus told Fox5 that his grievances range from fuel prices to school vaccine requirements to immigration. Other protesters with the larger People's Convoy, which is traveling from California to DC, have cited everything from foreign policy to pandemic restrictions.

Pennsylvania State Police said they monitored the situation with Bolus in the Harrisburg area. The Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, plans to work with the trucker convoys, providing support "like a military operation" as the convoys make their way to the D.C. area.

"January 6th has made this situation in the United States more challenging and scarier," Victor Asal, director of the Center for Policy Research at the University at Albany, State University of New York, told The Washington Post, in reference to predicting far-right threats. "We still don't know how many trucks and truckers are actually going to follow through and I don't think we are going to know that at least for several more days."

Authorities in D.C. are taking no chances. The Department of Defense approved requests for the National Guard to help with traffic flow in Washington, D.C., as truckers and their allies plan protests in the next few days against pandemic restrictions and other government policies.

The troops would be used to assist with traffic control during demonstrations expected in the city in the coming days, the Defense Department said. Four hundred National Guard members from the District of Columbia Guard will be joined by 300 Guard members from other states.

With reporting from Patch correspondent Mark Hand