WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- The National Air and Space Museum in Washington was closed Saturday after protesters pushed a guard against a wall and tried to enter, a spokeswoman said.
Linda St. Thomas said as many as 200 protesters tried to enter the museum at the Smithsonian but were told by security guards they could not come in, The Washington Post reported. She said demonstrators pushed a guard up against a wall and another guard used pepper-spray before Washington police and U.S. Park Police were called.
Witnesses told the newspaper more than a dozen people has been sprayed.
Cody Steele, an American University senior who took part in the protest march to Air and Space Museum, told the newspaper some of the protesters were part of Occupy DC -- part of a nationwide series of protests emulating Occupy Wall Street, in which groups ranging in size from the hundreds to the thousands have been protesting in the New York financial district for weeks. Steele said the march had been planned by a separate group, known as October 2011, which has been occupying Freedom Plaza near the White House since Thursday.
The museum was closed at about 3:15 p.m. EDT and would reopen Sunday at 10 a.m., St. Thomas said.
No serious injuries were reported in Saturday's incident, authorities said.
