Zip-Ties and Wheelchairs

When Capitol Police zip-tied senior citizens and disabled individuals in wheelchairs during a peaceful protest for Medicaid protections, it wasn’t just a public relations disaster—it was a moral failure.

On June 25, 2025, roughly three dozen demonstrators, many visibly frail or elderly, gathered in the Russell Senate Office Building to protest proposed cuts to Medicaid in a pending Senate appropriations package. Chanting slogans like “Don’t cut Medicaid, don’t kill us,” they sat in a corridor, blocking no entrances, harming no one, threatening no lawmaker. Still, one by one, Capitol Police began arresting them—zip-tying arms and wheeling them away under federal code 22-1307: “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding.”

Technically legal? Sure. Ethically defensible? Absolutely not.

Capitol Police explained that the protest took place in a restricted zone and disrupted traffic. The charge of "incommoding" isn’t new—it has been used before to remove peaceful demonstrators from Capitol buildings, including during past healthcare protests (such as the 2017 ADAPT demonstration). The rationale was the same: they didn’t protest in the “right place.”

But ask yourself: Does peaceful dissent lose its moral power if it’s staged a few feet outside a permitted zone? And even more critically: Was the physical restraint of elderly, disabled Americans truly necessary?

Police have the right to enforce rules. But with that right comes discretion. And in this case, discretion gave way to optics that will haunt anyone with a sense of justice. Elderly women in wheelchairs zip-tied and carried off by officers in body armor is not a scene you expect in a free democracy. It’s one you’d expect in a dystopian novel.

As a follower of Christ, I cannot look at these images without hearing the words of Proverbs 31:8:

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed.”

The Bible consistently calls us to defend the poor, the sick, and the elderly. Medicaid is a program that does just that. These citizens—our neighbors, grandparents, veterans—weren’t demanding privilege. They were begging not to be forgotten, not to be sacrificed on the altar of budgetary wrangling.

To respond with zip ties and criminal charges to people peacefully begging to be allowed access to care is more than tone-deaf—it’s a disgrace to the American conscience.

By criminalizing their peaceful protest, our government sent a dangerous message: Your dignity ends where our rules begin. When the government responds to weakness with force and to peaceful advocacy with prosecution, it undermines its own legitimacy.

Christians must remember that Jesus Himself overturned tables when the temple was defiled—and yet He never raised a sword against Caesar. Protest, even civil disobedience, has long been a tool of the righteous. Think of the civil rights marches, where pastors and elders were jailed for sitting at segregated counters. Were they “incommoding” the system? Absolutely. But the injustice wasn’t in their movement—it was in the system they challenged.

To the policymakers: listen before you legislate.

To law enforcement: protect with discretion, not brute enforcement.

To believers: remember that loving your neighbor includes defending their ability to live with dignity.

Christ didn’t ignore the blind, the sick, the lame, or the poor. He walked toward them. And if we claim to follow Him, we should walk toward those in wheelchairs too—not wheel them away in cuffs.

Sources

News Reports

1. Sforza, Lauren. “Capitol Police Zip Tie Elderly Protesters in Wheelchairs During Medicaid Protest.” The Hill, June 25, 2025.

2. Figueroa, Alyssa. “Capitol Police Zip Tie Disabled Protesters at Medicaid Protest.” The Daily Beast / Newsweek, June 25, 2025.

3. Scripps News Staff. “Dozens Arrested During Medicaid Protest in Senate Office Building.” Scripps National News, June 25, 2025.

4. Schwartz, Rafi. “Police Zip-Tie Seniors in Wheelchairs During Anti-Medicaid Cut Protest.” The Independent, June 25, 2025.

5. Rosenthal, Elisabeth. “Medicaid Cuts Could Push Disabled Adults Back Into Institutions.” KFF Health News, June 2023.

6. ADAPT Archive. “43 Disability Activists Arrested at Senate Office Building.” ADAPT.org, 2017.

Biblical Sources (NLT)

Proverbs 31:8–9

Matthew 25:35–40

Micah 6:8

Isaiah 1:17

Romans 13 (regarding civil authority)

Academic & Policy

1. Bagenstos, Samuel. Law and the Vulnerable: Health Care and Disability in America. Oxford University Press, 2017.

2. Harrington, Charlene. “The Politics of Medicaid and the Elderly Poor.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Duke University Press, 2018.