After everything that happened yesterday, a majority of House Republicans still voted to overturn the election results. Truly an unredeemable party of traitors.
My sons called me last night to see what I thought of yesterday’s shenanigans. At the moment I had just sat down in front of the computer and was just then learning of them. My first question was, “Did anyone get shot?” the 2nd was, “Did anyone get arrested?” because we all know the special treatment fragile white males get from the police. The answers were exactly what I expected.
I remember volunteer medics at BLM protests getting beat up and arrested for doing exactly what that cop at my 2nd above link is doing.
If there are no serious repercussions for what happened, I am deeply concerned about what could happen on Inauguration Day (if it’s a public event).
Beyond that, the YouGov survey @drj cited is horrifying. And if Republicans do not become vocal about rejecting this behavior then this is going to continue to fester and infect that party.
The ongoing silence of Republican Leaning OTB readers on this suggests that there is little chance of that vocal rejection ever happening.
“It’s domestic terrorism — might as well call it what it is,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Caleb Rowden said. “I think the folks that are using this method to try and prove a point are doing way more damage than they could even comprehend. … We’ve been divided for so long, and everybody is to blame for completely different reasons.”
“I hope those folks get arrested, I hope they get thrown in prison, and hopefully we can get back to some sense of normalcy,” he said. “Everybody’s to blame. We’ve all screwed this up, and it’s going to be up to us to figure out how to fix it.”
……………………………….
House Republican leadership also canceled a planned press conference. In a joint statement, they said: “The violence and destruction that occurred today in our nation’s capital is unacceptable. Peaceful protests are an important part of free speech, but violence can never be tolerated.”
I was not expecting to pass on anything positive from a Missouri Republican today. Mike Parson on the other hand spoke in weasel, as per usual:
Gov. Mike Parson said he hadn’t been closely monitoring the unfolding events in the nation’s capital but stressed his proclivity for “law and order.”
Beyond that, the YouGov survey @drj cited is horrifying.
But it makes sense, doesn’t it? If I believed that the election was stolen through massive fraud, I, too, would be cheering these rioters on.
It’s not the behavior as such that is the problem, it’s the fact that there are too many people who are enabling these goons in believing transparent (but emotionally comfortable) bullshit.
A society that tolerates vicious propaganda and deliberate misinformation can’t survive in the long run. Every Fox News/OANN media personality, every GOP mouth of Sauron should be shunned. No comity or compromise with the 121 Representatives and 6 Senators who objected to the electoral vote. Kick them off every committee they are on.
Gov. Mike Parson condemned the mob that breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, but stopped short of blaming President Donald Trump for inflaming supporters before they stormed the building.
The Republican governor of Missouri responded “absolutely not” when asked whether Trump loyalists were emboldened by the president. “My understanding is the president told them not to commit any violence,” Parson said at a news conference.
It’s not the behavior as such that is the problem, it’s the fact that there are too many people who are enabling these goons in believing transparent (but emotionally comfortable) bullshit.
THIS. How many of them started backpedaling as soon as they realized the mob was actually doing what they said they would do….. and incidentally put a lot of those enablers at direct risk? How many craven, mealy-mouthed weasels were begging them to stop and “that’s not who we are” simply because they happened to be in the path of the chaos and understood their safety was not guaranteed? Had the mob be just out of liberal blood would these folks have been comfortable standing in the throng and pouring more oil on the fire? Notice Trump ran back to the safety of the WH before continuing to egg them on; he said he would lead them but then noped out to keep tweeting. So many GOP last night rapidly disavowing and stating that they didn’t mean for this to happen, they just wanted to talk about how important it was to Stop the Steal and Take Back the Government. Several even used the word performative and seemed shocked that the rubes didn’t realize it was an act.
You cannot keep hyping people up and not deliver. You cannot continually whip the crowd into a feverish state then expect them to suddenly and quietly go back to docility on command. At some point GOP, you must pay the piper and that time is NOW. Last night proved you don’t have the control you think you do; how many of you begged for them to stop and were ignored? You cannot control the beast you raised and are forced to obey the insane whims of the only one who might be able to. Was it worth it to now live the rest of your life as a slave to the monster you’ve made?
@KM:
I pointed this out last night: That big, brave Trump incited his followers to riot, told them he’d be there with them, and then slunk back to to the safety of the White House to eat hamberders and watch them on tv.
The fools haven’t even noticed–or if they have, they’ve excused him.
One of the protesters was shot and killed — was she shot by a fellow protester or by the guards? If by the guards then it means they were using live ammo, which means they were taking the attack (quite rightly) very seriously. If by other protesters then its amazing the guards didn’t return fire (since presumably the protesters would have been firing at the guards).
@Northerner: Seeing another video clip of a single Capitol Hill Police Officer with a collapsible baton slowing down a mob moving through a hallway, then up stairs, the thugs were trying to grab the baton out of the officer’s hand, he even drops it early in the video (but picks it up).
My guess would be that the moron who was shot either tried to grab a handgun out of an officer’s hand, or was standing near another moron who tried it.
That sounds plausible. If handguns with live ammo were out though, then the Capital police (note the correction from guards) were obviously taking things very seriously (as opposed to some reports that they were handling the protesters with kid gloves) — generally police don’t draw guns unless they’re willing to use them.
I’m amazed they allowed the protesters into the congressional offices. America seems to be a funny place, police shoot people for minor offenses (or even when they’re running away), but allow mass protests (including attacking police, overturning cars, burning buildings) to go on largely unchecked. Most of the world does it in reverse.
@Northerner: were they “taking it seriously” when they took selfies with these neo-confederates? Or when they pulled away barriers? Or how about when there was a token force in those capitol steps?
@CSK: Just to clarify. The nuclear codes are merely various response plans to a nuclear 1st strike. There are still people in the Chain of Command that have to receive the order and execute the plan. At this point, no one is going to take a call from Trump. Pence is calling the shots from the next 13 days.
Shooting someone, drawing guns with live ammo isn’t taking things seriously? There are more pictures coming out now, and a lot of them have police and security people with drawn guns, and what looks to be tear gas, not to mention hitting people with batons.
Does the criteria for “taking it seriously” require tanks and machine guns?
Shooting someone, drawing guns with live ammo isn’t taking things seriously?
Being someone who was highly critical of the Police response to BLM protests, this is a bit of a hard topic to write. It can at once be true that (a) some police in the Capitol siege deployed deadly force, and (b) as a whole, the Capitol Police force didn’t deploy/project uniform, extreme, and proactive violence/force against the mob in the same way they did against BLM protests (including the clearing of peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square). It can also be simultaneously true that (c) it appears that some on the Capital Police force were actively assisting the rioters in accessing the capital (something that we DID NOT see during the summer).
This is the problem with binary thinking about these events. Jumping through hoops to get to “both sides” is a hell of a drug.
@Northerner: The operative term is “mass protest”. From what I have observed, both through media and in person, if law enforcement is significantly outnumbered it is not uncommon to pullback, at the very least slowing the spread of the crowd. Several Capitol police had their weapons drawn at barricaded doors of the House chamber that rioters were trying to break through. Once the chamber had been cleared of House members and staff (the officer’s primary responsibility), the officers withdrew and the rioters were able to gain entry. That this happened is a result of some combination of intelligence failure, incompetence, and deliberate malicious actors (and I’m not talking about the rioters).
This is the problem with binary thinking about these events. Jumping through hoops to get to “both sides” is a hell of a drug.
I don’t think it has much to do with “both sides”, at least from my perspective (I’m not an American, so the partisan politics involved are foreign to me). My biggest take from it is the level of violence (from police and protesters) that is taken as normal (or not a serious matter) in America right now is off the charts. In Canada, police shooting protesters with live ammo (which I assume they did both in this and in BLM protests) would be a big deal. It seems to be a secondary or even tertiary point in America.
My guess is that the lack of gun control makes everyone trigger happy — it takes away the sense of having time to think things through. Is there any chance that Biden will be able to push through gun control now that he has congress and senate majority (it would help us up here too, many of our illegal guns come from your neck of the woods).
@mattbernius: I don’t want to be too Pollyanaish, but the video clip of Capitol Police “opening a gate to let through rioters” looks to me like a small number of officers moving out of the way to allow a large push of rioters through a very low density barrier. Likewise, it is my understanding that the Lafayette Square photo op clearing was conducted by Bureau of Prison personnel courtesy of AG Barr (although Metro PD and National Guard were providing perimeter security).
@Thomm:
It looks like there were some very different reactions among the Capitol Police.
Some effectively welcomed them in; other photos show them weapons drawn holding the House chamber doors or trying to hold the mob with pepper spray and batons on the stairs.
@owen:
Fair about that particular video. And investigation is warranted.
And I know that different police forces are involved in all of these incidents. That’s secondary to the larger point.
Also, let’s not forget the Capitol Police’s long-established record of effectively preparing for and conducting pretty physical arrests of other protest movements.
Again, I’m honestly not trying to call for harsher policing. But there are marked differences between the scale and treatment of different groups. And generally speaking, the treatment of a bunch of angry white folks on a vacation riot was different than the treatment of BLM protests (which often escalated into violence due to police responses — as I saw happen multiple times here in Rochester).
Edit: This series of tweets better encapsulates part of what I was trying to say:
With an academic lens: studies of protest and social movements typically focus on the “rebels’ dilemma” – the collective action problem of getting people to show up
but there is also a state dilemma – when and how state actors engage in repression (and when they don’t)
What did we see yesterday?
-a confused police force?
-an overwhelmed police force?
-an overwhelmed but sympathetic police force?
-a complicit police force?
I don’t know.
Were state actors unable to effectively respond yesterday? Or unwilling? (Bit of both?)
Did they properly fall back and wait for reinforcements once overrun? Were they deterred by bomb/IED threats from inside the capitol?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that these state actors (largely US Capitol Police) engaged in less repressive violence than similarly situated actors (largely MPD, but also assorted federal police) were in Summer 2020.
If they don’t get rid of Trump via impeachment or the 25th Amendment, how do you suppose they’ll control him for the next thirteen days?
By replying to every order or request, “Yes, sir, Mr. Cheeto. It will take two weeks.”
Pence and the cabinet could also attempt a reverse “Dave” strategy. First they put Trump in a comma (put some ketamine in his hamberders or something), then get Alec Baldwin to impersonate him until January 2oth.
@Northerner: How many were arrested? I read 13, which is laughably low considering the #s and what was done. How many had to go to hospitals for treatment, such as getting stitches after having their head bashed in, or losing an eye to a rubber bullet?
One cop fired a gun. You are assuming it was on purpose when accidental firings happen fairly often.
I might quibble with the word “unprecedented” here. Some months back, a similar group in Michigan attempted to occupy the legislative chambers while the legislature was in session in order to intimidate them to take specific actions. More people are going to die.
Here are the women – Senate aides – who had the presence of mind and courage to transport and keep safe the electoral votes before fleeing the Senate. There will always be villains. There will always be heroes.
@Northerner: I think you have to distinguish protesters in a public space from rioters trying to enter a restricted building. If the rioters had simply stayed in a public area and gotten out of control, then non-lethal methods would have been used. But people actually entering the Capitol building was, apparently, unexpected and treated like a breaking and entering scenario, which can involve live ammo. It should have never gotten to that point, of course.
@Northerner: my requirement would have been to be in those steps with the same show of force that they had this summer to keep people from even thinking of doing the same. Or using the sonic cannons that were also used to disperse people like this summer. Where were the out of uniform agents grabbing people off the streets in vans (not that I approve..just pointing it out). Would it be too much to ask that they be treated like ADAPT activists that were litterally dragged out of wheelchairs and slammed on the floor to have the termity to agitate for health care? I am not weeping over a shot traitor and nothing if what you say obliviates the kid gloves these people were treated with all damn day and for years.
@JohnSF: true for the people on the ground, but it is the leadership that placed a token force in everyday uniforms on those steps. Individuals are responsible for their own actions or inactions as the case may be, but the leadership and culture is responsible for the weak display of deterrence… especially since this had been planned along all sorts of social media platforms for some time.
I know that Rs are desperately trying to make this a both sides issue.
But on what evidence?
From what I heard on PBS from Republican mouthpieces, the official revised history seems to be that Democrats started this by refusing to recognize the legitimacy of Trump’s election and propagating Fake News about Russian interference and collusion. The impeachment was just a continuation of this, all about the election and not about Ukraine at all, don’t mention Ukraine.
Pence, the cabinet, the Congressional GOP leadership, all have the tools to stop trump any time they wish. But they lack the courage to find the will to do so.
Hell, even if the cabinet cannot find consensus for invoking the 25th amendment, they could resign en-masse, including Pence. Or at least threaten to.
@Thomm:
Yes, the leadership needs roasting over this.
What in hell was their contingency planning for this sort of thing?
Do Capitol and DC police co-ordinate effectively for these operations?
etc etc
@mattbernius: Whenever I hear an “expert” talk about “proportionality”, I grimace because I know it means “excess”.
Back to the Bureau of Prisons personnel, they are part of a cadre with training to put down violent prison uprisings and conduct cell extractions. Many of the goons in Portland were from the same group. I don’t want to put Corrections Officers in untenable positions, but most Western nations don’t need these procedures in their prisons, so are those procedures necessary?
WaPo reporting Facebook is banning Trump indefinitely.
BREAKING: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that the social media giant was banning President Trump indefinitely, a sign of escalated actions by tech giants in the face of growing social unrests at end of Trump’s term in office.
“We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” he wrote. “Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.
I see FOX is peddling this “blame the cops” narrative too. In their case it’s a deflection.
I don’t see it that way at all. This was one of maybe a hundred Trump rallies and nothing like this has happened before. It was only a couple thousand people, not the hordes that came with the BLM protests. The police failing to anticipate what happened is hardly an outrage. Nevertheless with only what to my eye looks like a few dozen regular cops and plainclothes capital building security guys they got all the VIPs (a few hundred people) out, and only had to kill one person in the process. Not too shabby.
What’s that I hear? A few dozen mostly-without-full battle-rattle-riot-gear cops failed to keep a few thousand people totally at bay is an outrage? Drop those pearls. Does anyone think that’s enough people to hold barricades? Does anyone think that they should have started firing into that crowd, slaughtering maybe dozens so they had zero access to the building? They held the line until the VIPs were out of harms way, by the look of it. Then they let them in but held the critical corridors. They had enough people to do that. This narrowed their field of fire to those who were seeking to get at the politicians instead of just getting into the building.
IMO: 99.9876450% of the blame belongs with the people who charged the building and those who led them to it.
I fucking do not care about the tactics used yesterday. I sincerely want to know why tactics were a salient issue at all.
Protests are fine. Protests happen all the time. I am perfectly okay with protests.
But how the fuck did yahoos penetrate and occupy the capitol?
This is not a regional HQ of random megacorp beset by protesters.
It is the fucking seat of our government. You are eliding the responsibility and duty of fed cops to prevent such an event to occur.
What happened yesterday should never happen. Since it did, we need to figure out how and why security failed to prevent future run-overs of Capitol police.
People knew there were going to be huge crowds demanding access. I knew and I am a podunk.
Yesterday was a massive institutional failure.
I would say that this cannot happen, but it did happen yesterday. It cannot happen again.
@dazedandconfused:
Not as a matter of routine; but there should be contingency planning for this sort of thing.
And as for “nobody could have foreseen…” Arieh Kovler@ariehkovler Dec 21, 2020
“On January 6, armed Trumpist militias will be rallying in DC, at Trump’s orders. It’s highly likely that they’ll try to storm the Capitol after it certifies Joe Biden’s win. I don’t think this has sunk in yet.”
@JohnSF: I teared up over that picture. Those women doing their jobs. In fact displaying initiative and courage to do their jobs. And Republicans think the idiots banging on the doors are the heroes.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that the social media giant was banning President Trump indefinitely, a sign of escalated actions by tech giants in the face of growing social unrests at end of Trump’s term in office.
Should an investigation ensue, bet the farm there was a contingency plan and it was successfully executed. That plan would not be to ensure they didn’t take the building, not with the regular staff-force available. The plan would be to get the VIPs out before the outer defenses were breached.
I did not say or mean to imply “nobody could have foreseen”, what I am saying is it wasn’t anticipated.
Because we’ve always preferred that our capital (and White House) not be staffed or resemble Ft. Knox.
Exactly. One of the often repeated clips showed the mob easily breaking in windows and entering. And yesterday was a day when Congress was doing a largely ceremonial part of the “peaceful transfer of power.” I’m sure that none of leadership wanted to be doing that behind a company or two of LEO in riot gear, since that pretty much defeats the purpose.
The tactical difficulties stem from numbers and an unwillingness to use large-scale deadly force on mobs unless absolutely necessary. Hey, if something like this is anticipated they can and do bring enough people and stuff to deter most large crowds.
My opinion is the cops are being deliberately scapegoated as a deflection tactic by FOX et al and by some sort of knee-jerk reaction from the left. I don’t know where the heck they are going with that, anyway. Total mystery to me why they would beat on the cops in this.
From what I can see so far the cops did a good job. I don’t expect them to be able to keep a mob out of buildings like these. You can’t expect the regular staff in those places to be able to withstand a mob, not unless you have capital grounds which strongly resemble a prison or a fort, or to have very wide and open fields of fire around them and a willingness to treat protesters like the Izzies treat the denizens of Gaza.
We don’t want that look, and there is insufficient evidence we need that look. Not for something that happened once in a couple centuries.
Back to the Bureau of Prisons personnel, they are part of a cadre with training to put down violent prison uprisings and conduct cell extractions. Many of the goons in Portland were from the same group. I don’t want to put Corrections Officers in untenable positions, but most Western nations don’t need these procedures in their prisons, so are those procedures necessary?
What surprises me most is how few people were in the capitol — for all the talk of rampaging mobs, the hallways were pretty clear.
Look at the iconic photos: when the buffalo man is at the podium, there aren’t a huge number of people in the building. Dude with the confederate flag in the hallway is in a pretty empty hallway. There’s one guy in Pelosi’s office, with his feet up.
I don’t know how to reconcile it with the crowds outside. Good on the Capitol Police for not letting more people in, I suppose.
Detective Eames: (questioning a Roman Catholic priest). Father did you rape the victim?
Detective Goren: An Episcopal priest can have a wife and a Lutheran pastor can date a Playmate!
I can only assume that Goren was not talking about a pastor of
the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
This was predictable. It had already happened in Michigan and Oregon.
Everyone knew they were going to be huge numbers of protesters on Jan. 6. Trump promised it would be a “wild time” in his tweets.
Of the cops deployed, they likely performed well.
But, there were not enough deployed.
This was a massive institutional failure of historic proportion. It should not have happened. It could have been prevented. It was easily foreseen by randos like me.
This was banana republic mob shenanigans.
They over-ran the Capitol Police and occupied the Capitol.
I think you are arguing from a good place and are concerned about over-policing. I respect that, approve of that, and honor that.
But this was a massive fuck-up. A mob over-ran security and occupied our seat of government for hours. I think that you are looking at this tactically, but I do not.
If thieves came for Ft. Knox I’d expect our security to prevent that.
If an entirely predictable mob comes to occupy the Capitol, I expect that it will not happen and will be denied professionally as well.
Please do not hang pro cop arguments on me. I fucking hate cops for valid personal reasons. I am never going to float a pro-cop policy. It would be antithetical.
But we need to fucking secure our seat of government too.
It looks like there were some very different reactions among the Capitol Police.
Some effectively welcomed them in; other photos show them weapons drawn holding the House chamber doors or trying to hold the mob with pepper spray and batons on the stairs.
Why would we expect otherwise? The Capitol Police are not immune to lies on social media anymore than the population at large.
I’m sure that there were a fair number who were conflicted, but did their job anyway (40% of the population believes these lies, and police tend to be more likely to be Republican, so there have a be a fair number). And, a smaller number who were conflicted and did a poor job.
link
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he will fire Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Mike Stenger when Democrats take the majority later this month after the pro-Trump riots in the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.
@de stijl: What I’m trying to think of is what the responses could be that don’t also pretty much do in the notion of “peaceful transfer of power.” What are the poll numbers — 60M Americans believe that the election was stolen? How many states have legislatures where a majority of the members are in that 60M? The Civil War didn’t start because the man in the street necessarily favored it; it started because majorities in state legislatures favored it.
Looks like various agencies are trying to ID and arrest the people who broke into the Capitol. I expect several will end up pleading to gun and trespass and other relatively mild charges. Whatever they get, I hope it’s publicized. This wouldn’t have happened had we treated Cliven Bundy the way he should have been treated.
There will be an investigation into the shooting. If he’d shot a Black BLM protester ranks would close around him. But he has the misfortune of having shot a white woman. He doesn’t have the “scary Black guy” defense. I fear the shooter will end up punished more than any of the protesters. In any case, the woman will be glorified as a martyr in RW media and the shooter will be the goat.
When I was a kid my grandmother took me to an ELCA (Swedish) Lutheran church. Screw those Norwegians.
There was also a super hard-core lot out of Missouri. Can’t remember the acronym.
Religousity was not my thing so it did not stick.
To this day I totally do not get the Holy Spirit. What is the purpose or role? You look like you got invented so there would be three and Christians are programmed to think in threes.
The Holy Spirit / Ghost is basically Bucky Barnes. Whatever role the big boys cannot or should not do gets shunted over. It may or may not be Hydra affiliated.
I am seriously not anti-religious, but I truly do not know what purpose or role Holy Spirit / Ghost fulfills.
Yes, the evacuation contingency plan worked, thankfully.
However, as you say:
“you can’t expect the regular staff in those places to be able to withstand a mob”
That’s my point.
There should have been expectation of a high probability of mob action beyond the level the Capitol Police could defeat.
Therefore, there should at minimum have been arrangements with the DC police to have an effective force in place between the capitol and where the mob was assembled.
“…(a) ceremonial part of the “peaceful transfer of power. I’m sure that none of leadership wanted to be doing that behind a company or two of LEO in riot gear, since that pretty much defeats the purpose.
Well, that purpose got pretty well defeated anyway, didn’t it?
Everyone knew they were going to be huge numbers of protesters on Jan. 6. Trump promised it would be a “wild time” in his tweets.
I am genuinely surprised that the WaPo front page does not have crowds of people in front of the white house demanding Trump resign. Maybe they are there and it isn’t that exciting yet.
This wouldn’t have happened had we treated Cliven Bundy the way he should have been treated.
With the Bundy’s it wasn’t an unwillingness on the part of the Feds to prosecute, the local juries wouldn’t convict. it’s a given that with sufficient evidence, DC juries will convict.
From the videos I’ve seen, it appears to me that the woman was shot by Secret Service while trying to break through a window into where Grassley, Pelosi, and possibly Pence were. She was a threat to the Presidential line of succession in the United States of America, and the Secret Service took care of the threat.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Play revolution, get shot in real life.
I am not weeping over a shot traitor and nothing if what you say obliviates the kid gloves these people were treated with all damn day and for years
You live in a strange country, if shooting and killing a protester is considered treating them with kid gloves. Seriously, you need gun control, because right now the instinct seems to be if someone was shot then they deserved it.
There are already threats on Parler that they’re going to show up in force again on the 19th, and definitely bringing their guns. I’m perfectly fine with lethal force being authorized for all responding police forces and National Guard troops. They really want to play revolution, let’s play.
It never should have gotten that far is certainly right, but its hard not to think shooting is a first response for many of your police. Like the man who was shot in the back running away from police, or the man who was shot while crawling down a hallway begging for his life. As far as I know, both the police involved got away with it, and I suspect whoever shot and killed the protester will too.
It might have been accidental — the gun just going off by itself. But I suspect it was already drawn and aimed — a gun falling out of a holster, hitting the ground and firing and hitting someone seems unlikely.
I just don’t get why police killings aren’t a big deal in America. Your police kill 1000+ people every year — according to Wiki its about 34 per 10 million people, many times higher than any other G20 country.
@Northerner: The “peaceful protestors” were outside the building. If she was attempting to gain access to a room that held two and possibly three of the top people in line to become President, well, we pay Secret Service to keep those people alive, and so they did. You may call it “getting away with it”, I call it “lawfully neutralizing a threat to the Presidential line of succession”.
@Northerner:
“Shooting and killing a protestor” would be reprehensible.
Shooting and killing someone engaged in an insurrectionary assault on the national seat of government, and reportedly a threat to senior figures in the Presidential line of succession? Not so reprehensible.
I would certainly expect the police to respect the right of protest outside Parliament; I would expect them to forcefully repel an attempt to storm Parliament.
I would expect the police and/or military to respond with lethal force to a threat to the safety of MP’s or the Royal Family.
I give them some lee-way on the anticipation, on account there had been many Trump rallies in the past and a POTUS asking a mob to march on the capital (yup, he did that, bigger than s&#t!) and the crowd actually doing it?!? I don’t recall many pundits warning us of that. Furthermore the preparation would be on the scale of the BLM mobilization. The above doesn’t happen and they get called clowns. Above all in our system the POTUS is the top cop in the land. Calls for such mobilization are supposed to come from the Executive branch!
System breakdown? Absolutely. Should we be blaming the cops? No.
@de stijl: I’m trying. I hate where I live right now. People I know and like in real life are insisting it was Antifa and Trump’s still the best President Evahhhh, and it makes me want to scream, especially when they’re all sharing the Parler announcement to Facebook and getting all giddy about MOAR REVOLUTION.
@Northerner: it isn’t her that had been coddled, but right wing movements over time ..don’t be deliberately obtuse, it is unbecoming. Also…look above in what she was doing at the time. Protestor or not, the secret service tends to take their job very seriously unlike your usual beat cop. I bet even in Canada, a person trying to assault a room that contains members of Trudeau’s succession would have the RCMP putting at least one hole in them. I dunno…maybe they would have offered timbits to try to calm that person down, but I highly doubt it.
No acknowledgement over the things I put up an how they could have had a real deterrent presence so it might not have happened in the first place?
Again..why weren’t these people treated half as efficiently as handicapped activists that were agitating for health care? Didn’t see anyone posing for selfies with them.
@de stijl: No worries, I didn’t indicate that I understood/knew of that link. Less sleep than I am accustomed to means my brevity might miss context. 🙂
@owen:
Just following up on the one video. The person who took it has stated that it appears that the Police abandoned those gates to redeploy. Details are here:
so my #3 characterization was off (however, there’s a lot of video of police handling these protesters very differently than we’ve seen in other cases, including the video of an officer helping a woman down the stairs. Again, I much prefer that treatment to what we saw in Buffalo for example where they inflicted head trauma on a peaceful pensioner. But it again demonstrates a major difference in tactics and use of force).
There are still people in the Chain of Command that have to receive the order and execute the plan. At this point, no one is going to take a call from Trump.
I had assumed this was the state of affairs. But this exploration of the Nuclear Chain of command sent chills down my spine. The people talking have direct experience with this chain and they are not nervous nellies. TL:DR is: People are chosen specifically to obey that awful order when it comes, regardless of their own reservations. There have been a number of incidents over the years where great lengths were taken to weed out people who might question the order. If the President communicates an order such that the people manning the launch facility get it, they will launch.
What you are hoping is that good, sane people around Trump can keep him from communicating to the launch facility. Think about that for a minute.
I think you can safely assume I am honestly obtuse (as opposed to pretending to be so), because I simply don’t see how the level of violence that seems to be the norm with American police is anything but kid gloves. If it was just this one event I might be inclined to agree with you, but it seems to be the norm. That was the whole point of BLM protests, wasn’t it? And the ratio of poor people (of any race) killed by police to rich people is almost certainly even higher than the ratio of black men killed to white men. Seriously, how many of the 1000+ people killed by your police every year are millionaires?
I do think its because you don’t have gun control, and so the first reaction is to shoot because of fear of being shot, but its still strange to see people justifying police shooting someone who appeared to be unarmed.
When I am stuck in a conversation I do not want to be in a song/ lyric plays in my head.
I don’t give a shit about you. I don’t give a shit about you.
It’s more of a chant than a song. Kinda cheerleadery.
It works for me. There are bullshit people in your life you have to deal with. Pretend to abide and skedaddle asap.
Another dodge is to abruptly bring up a new topic as soon as it is your turn to speak and just fake that what they just said you did not hear at all. “Hey! I just tried a new brand of chocolate stout called *blah* you should check it out if you like stout. I really have to go. You have a great day.”
@Northerner:
Ok, I think this gets to the crux of the issue — calibration of definitions.
1. You are correct. In a better world, American police would treat everyone with kid gloves (or at least closer to the treatment in other Western Countries). You are also correct that is fundamentally the argument of BLM (more or less… I’m not going to get into police abolition or refunding at the moment).
2. However, given that *isn’t the case* for Americans. And because of that, we–sadly–have become somewhat more acculturated to this and therefore we can see different levels of response in things that you are lopping together into “equally violent.” We are also, frankly, paying closer attention to these things than you are for obvious reasons. In fact, some of us, like Ozark and myself are involved in Criminal Legal System Reform or Advocacy (to various levels). So while those responses look the same to you, they definitely look different to us.
This is all deeply cultural and to some degree you need an understanding of the history of policing in the US and its connections to things like racism, to appreciate what’s going on here. Trying to apply filters from a different country doesn’t necessarily work here.
Or to put it a different way, it would be like me asking questions like “Why does Canada have two languages? Why not just unite under English? And why isn’t the French spoken in Canada real French? Come on, other countries make that a lot more simple.”
Also doing Rich/Poor and race comparisons is really not a great idea, as race remains a far more defining characteristic of American History than class (which again, is something unique to the American experience, sadly).
You are correct about the systemic wide problem and one of its major contributing factors…you will get no argument from me. But using this incident to conflate those things is insulting to those who actually have been victimized and/or killed wrongly by police. Also, if you look through our history, movements by the undesirables (the poor, minorities, the handicapped) and left wing economic movements are treated much more harshly from the beginning. Are first nations activists treated the same by your authorities as, say…damn
to be honest, I don’t know of many right movements in Canada other than maybe quebec separatists and I am not sure if that really fits…but anyway, the same as one of them? If so…awesome, but that has never been the case here.
Authorities don’t wait for the building to be breached…those people get put down hard or have a huge deterrent presence keeping most from even thinking it might be a good idea to try.
You are trying to make this about one policing issue, it seems, while I am talking about a whole different policing issue.
And…even with your gun control, if the same thing happened to your parliament building and some MP’s were in danger before they could be cleared, I would bet there would also be a seriously wounded, if not dead canadian.
@Northerner:
Because they got,well, sneakily.
And in the cases I can recall were a good distance from the VIP’s; one in the back of the No10 complex, one in the grounds of Chequers, a couple in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and the “private area” of Windso0r Castle.
The exception being Fagan in ’82. Stories vary on that: he made out he had wandered into the Queeen’s bedroom and chatted with her, more credible ones that she had heard a disturbance and left the area.
Let’s say the careers of those responsible for security in these cases did not prosper.
And the intruders were very fortunate.
There was also Marcus Sarjent in the 1980’s (?) who fired off blanks near the Queen; and was lucky not be skewered by a guardsman, who probably only did not shoot because firing high velocity rifle in a crowded street is not recommended.
At any rate, the circumstances were not the same. If the Queen or PM or similar were potentially endangered by a mob in the Palace of Westminster, I would expect results similar to the Westminster attack of 2017: the suspect was engaged with lethal force by a Metropolitan Police Close Protection Officer for the Secretary of State for Defence.
@dazedandconfused: The Capitol police force is 2200 people, and they are responsible for the Capitol, only. This was entirely predictable.
I’m not, for the most part, blaming individual police. Though I think their behavior is proof that the violence we see at a lot of BLM protests is entirely unneeded. However, this was absolutely a failure of their leadership. This wasn’t tens of thousands of rioters overwhelming hundreds of police. It was hundreds of rioters overwhelming dozens of police. This whole thing never had to happen.
There will be an investigation into the shooting. If he’d shot a Black BLM protester ranks would close around him. But he has the misfortune of having shot a white woman. He doesn’t have the “scary Black guy” defense.
There is very clear video of the shooting available online. I have watched it, disturbing as it is. The double doors leading to the House chambers were barricaded from within by law enforcement (I am assuming Secret Service as they were plainclothed, but could have been Capitol Police). Members of Congress were still taking refuge in the chamber. One of the mob had smashed the glass in one of the doors, and then, despite repeated warnings from the law enforcement within, the woman attempted to climb through. The law enforcement officer took one step forward, fired one shot, and the woman fell to the floor. She was the only one of the mob who attempted to enter that way. Understandably.
I think the video shows the officer’s action was entirely justified.
It is hard to have a lot of sympathy for the woman, but I still do, because she wasn’t much older than my own daughter and she died for a damnable fucking lie told by a damnable evil man.
@Mikey: To be clear, I want the shooters organization to come forward and say he was following clear orders in the face of a clear threat. In the video I saw I couldn’t see the shooter. Secret Service are more likely, I would think, to have clear policy and to back up their guy. But after the last few decades I have little faith in any law enforcement bureaucracy doing the right thing.
@Mikey: And the edit function has once again deserted us.
In the second video you can see further down the hall a uniformed Capitol Police officer. His weapon is drawn and ready, but it was a plainclothes officer closer to the doors who fired the shot.
There’s a disturbing thread on Twitter….they’re going through all the Getty images and identifying people, and in at least two instances it appears that men heavily armed in military gear entered the Senate chamber carrying zipties, the kind they use for temporary handcuffs. He’s been identified as former military.
Why else would you need flex cuffs unless you were planning on taking hostages?
@de stijl:
What I’m wondering is how is coordination and joint planning arranged between Capitol Police and D.C. Police.
It looks to me that’s the primary foul up: no plan to support the relatively small Capitol Police on site with adequate trained crowd control and barriers between the crowd rally location and the Capitol. No reinforcements for support of such with riot control units.
Once the mob had closed on the Capitol itself, even absent any unprofessional acts by the police (and some have suggested the ones who abandoned the barrier line were DOJ support guys?) it was going to almost impossible to secure the whole complex from inside without a blood-bath.
There should have been contingency planning for this.
Once the mob had closed on the Capitol itself, even absent any unprofessional acts by the police (and some have suggested the ones who abandoned the barrier line were DOJ support guys?) it was going to almost impossible to secure the whole complex from inside without a blood-bath.
Yes, as sad as it was to see these brain-dead goons desecrating the Capitol, the police were sorely outnumbered and basically had to allow the mob to roam the building because the other option was just to shoot everyone. But as we saw with the woman, there was a point beyond which lethal force was authorized, and she found it.
@Northerner: The fact that 1000+ people a year get shot by the police is exactly why it isn’t a big deal. It’s the whole “one person dying is a tragedy, one hundred people dying is a statistic” thing.
@dazedandconfused: If it had been Islamists coming in with AK-47s and suicide vests would you be so c’est la vie? Because you can be sure they were watching this on tv yesterday and thinking, “Why did we bother hijacking planes when we could have just walked thru the front door? Next time…”
@mattbernius: I would agree with you on the treatment of these protesters except that the treatment they got seems to be the exception rather than the rule, but still all we’re really seeing here what continually happens when bad people do bad things. We really need better people, and sadly, one of the groups that one would hope would be exemplars of being better people are the Platonic ideal of bad example.
@Northerner: I do think its because you don’t have gun control, and so the first reaction is to shoot because of fear of being shot,
No, that is not it.I can cite case after case of them arresting white people with guns (Remember Dylan Roof? they bought him a Big Mac) or a white woman driving around shooting up neighborhoods or most recently in South STL when some white meth head shot 2 cops, killing one (the black one, maybe that’s OK?) and still the cops managed to NOT kill him. But a black 12 yo playing with a toy gun in a playground? Kill him… within 4 seconds of getting out of the car. An unarmed black man with a flat tire on the side of the road at 2 AM? Kill him. A black man coming out of a garage with nothing but a cell phone? Kill him. A black man running away? Kill him.
Not that white folks aren’t killed by police, but somehow or other they get the benefit of a doubt no black man even gets.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Actually, the big Mac (or equivalent) is pretty standard for all prisoners. It’s the quickest and easiest way to feed someone in a holding cell, or who’s going to be stuck in a holding cell. And yes, Black prisoners were given the same bill of fare.
I recall once, when I was a law enforcement consultant, seeing a cell entirely wallpapered with McDonald’s wrappers.
Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors has been running through my head all day. The situation doesn’t fit the lyrics at all. But we’ve seen Republicans’ true colors shining through. Can we now deal with them for what they are? Do we have to put up with them wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming to be patriots?
Did the white guy crawling down the hallway begging for his life get a break? Sorry, but that one really sticks in my mind. I suspect that its rich white guys that get a break, not poor ones (again, how many poor whites are killed by police, vs how many millionaires? I suspect the poor are killed by police at something like a 50 to 1 ratio to the rich). Conservatives have put forward the idea that poor whites have more in common with rich whites than with poor blacks, and for some reason everyone seems to have gone along with it, though from what I can tell that’s nonsense.
But it’s not my country, and I guess its none of my business. I’ll butt out.
@Mikey: Thanks for the links. Twitter won’t let me see the first clip. Says I need to change a sensitive content setting, that I’ve now changed and still get the same message. But in any case it’s clear she breached a security perimeter. I assume they had orders to hold that perimeter and were under general orders to shoot in that situation. You can, in the second video, see half a dozen officers with guns up taking cover in door niches down that corridor they were breaking into. The situation seemed to have been going on for some minutes, so I’d assume verbal warnings had been given. Jumping up and pushing through that window was inviting what happened.
I’ll scratch a pet peeve of mine and note that it was one effective shot, not the panicky, scatter gun, emptying of a magazine we seem to see too often. I wouldn’t be surprised if the commander on the spot had designated one guy as shooter.
I haven’t questioned that, as they say in the cop shows, it was a righteous shoot. She’s going to be a martyr on the right and a cause celebre. I’m just hoping the guys bosses will back him up when GOP senators start pushing on them. And that they’ll keep his name out of the press and web.
It looks to me that’s the primary foul up: no plan to support the relatively small Capitol Police on site with adequate trained crowd control and barriers between the crowd rally location and the Capitol. No reinforcements for support of such with riot control units…. There should have been contingency planning for this.
The DC National Guard, all 1100 of them, were called up on Monday. As best we know now, Trump refused to deploy them. Pence and a couple of other underlings did issue those orders, quite possibly illegal orders, but only after the mob had broken into the Capitol. The Guard was nowhere close to where they needed to be.
@Northerner: Did the white guy crawling down the hallway begging for his life get a break?
I do not know this one, but as I said, “Not that white folks aren’t killed by police, but somehow or other they get the benefit of a doubt no black man even gets.”
As you said, “it’s not my country,” and I can assure you, while class does weigh in, I as a working class white man was accorded breaks few if any black men ever received. Haysoos christos, it’s not even close. Race IS the dividing line in American society. Probably every job I ever got in my life, I wouldn’t have if I had been black, and I know I wouldn’t have on at least a half dozen or more, and a half dozen others I got explicitly because I was white and not afraid of black people. Most people refuse to admit how the existence of a black man can cause incontinence in white people. My interactions with cops? Not one of them I wouldn’t have ended up in jail, or worse.
Race defines America like no other factor can. It is our original sin, and we still refuse to face that fact.
So if Trump pardons himself, does he list everything he wants to pardon himself for? What about the Trump kids and Don Jr’s girlfriend? I mean, this fucker KNOWS they’ve committed crimes they’ll need a pardon for?
Carissa Byrne Hessick
@CBHessick
I have seen so many people (including folks on #lawtwitter) comparing what happened at the Capitol yesterday with the violence and property damage that happened in some cities during protests last summer.
Let me explain what is wrong with that analogy . . . . .
“DC National Guard…Trump refused to deploy them. … Guard was nowhere close to where they needed to be.
Yes, that’s true.
And it may be where the advance planning fell over: plans assumed Guard would handle any Capitol exclusion perimeter and/or reinforcement role.
But I was thinking of just the Capitol and D.C. Police forces excluding the DC National Guard.
D.C. Police surely have crowd/riot control trained units.
I’m thinking some persons in the Capitol/DC coordination set up I am assuming might think: “what if the Guard aren’t available?” and set up a contingency tree for that.
Normally a very low probability scenario; but post November the probability went up appreciably.
At least that’s what I think I’d think if Cynical Paranoid Me was on the committee.
One of the most frustrating things is the number of people who don’t understand that the first amendment applies to the government restricting speech.
Yale law school graduate U.S. Senator Josh Hawley is whining on Twitter that his loss of a book deal is a first amendment issue and that he’ll see the publisher in court.
Not sure what confidence level to put on this. but have seen a few reports around that at least some in the Senate chamber breach were a particular group, moving together. John Scott-Railton@jsrailton
Also at Bellingcat.
Several now ID’d as ex military.
Carrying ziplok cuffs.
Some thought (not confirmations) re. “associates” of Flynn, also known groups of “contractors”.
@Jen:
I suspect Hawley understand the legalities perfectly well.
I also suspect he understands that the base he’s playing for understand the legalities hardly at all.
Pure cynicism to pander to the “But muh rites! Im been so persecuted!” crowd.
@JohnSF: I was really creeped out by that thread. There are the “selfie guys”, who were in it for the LULZ and the “likes” on social media, and then there were these other motherfuckers. All Democrats and Vice President Pence were in actual danger yesterday.
Pence and a couple of other underlings did issue those orders, quite possibly illegal orders,
Thanks for that. There’s a lot of speculation that Pence is behaving as acting President. Seems to me more likely someone said to Pence with a wink and a nod, “I can’t get ahold of Trump, say it’s OK with you and I’ll release the Guard.”
Not Ashcroft, but Jack Danforth. Danforth was a reasonable Republican, and very moderate in his views. Ashcroft is the one who had statute breasts covered when he was Attorney General.
I suspect Hawley knows and that the “take them to court” will be some small point of the contract he signed.
Still, he looks like a whiny fool. As Mara Liasson responded, “aren’t there any other publishers?”
After everything that happened yesterday, a majority of House Republicans still voted to overturn the election results. Truly an unredeemable party of traitors.
Maga v BLM: how police handled the Capitol mob and George Floyd activists – in pictures
My sons called me last night to see what I thought of yesterday’s shenanigans. At the moment I had just sat down in front of the computer and was just then learning of them. My first question was, “Did anyone get shot?” the 2nd was, “Did anyone get arrested?” because we all know the special treatment fragile white males get from the police. The answers were exactly what I expected.
I remember volunteer medics at BLM protests getting beat up and arrested for doing exactly what that cop at my 2nd above link is doing.
Good for Connor Lamb for telling it like it is…of course, some Republican snowflakes can’t handle the truth…
‘White privilege on display’: police hypocrisy condemned after pro-Trump insurgence .
Law and order my ass.
What a vile and disgusting little person…it’s good that some people watch Fox “News” so the rest of us don’t have to…
@MarkedMan:
Apparently, 45% of registered Republicans actively support the storming of the Capitol.
That’s what you get when you tolerate bullshit for too long. Rupert Murdoch should be proud.
Make America Great Again:
US Capitol riots: World leaders react to ‘horrifying’ scenes in Washington.
@MarkedMan: It was the first test post-assault, and they failed in large numbers.
If there are no serious repercussions for what happened, I am deeply concerned about what could happen on Inauguration Day (if it’s a public event).
Beyond that, the YouGov survey @drj cited is horrifying. And if Republicans do not become vocal about rejecting this behavior then this is going to continue to fester and infect that party.
The ongoing silence of Republican Leaning OTB readers on this suggests that there is little chance of that vocal rejection ever happening.
Politico has an outstanding oral history from their reporting team of what it was like to be inside the siege.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/07/capitol-storming-siege-congress-inside-first-person-oral-history-455715
Credit where credit is due: Missouri lawmakers address ‘domestic terrorism’ in DC on first day of session
I was not expecting to pass on anything positive from a Missouri Republican today. Mike Parson on the other hand spoke in weasel, as per usual:
Yeah, I’ll bet.
@mattbernius:
But it makes sense, doesn’t it? If I believed that the election was stolen through massive fraud, I, too, would be cheering these rioters on.
It’s not the behavior as such that is the problem, it’s the fact that there are too many people who are enabling these goons in believing transparent (but emotionally comfortable) bullshit.
A society that tolerates vicious propaganda and deliberate misinformation can’t survive in the long run. Every Fox News/OANN media personality, every GOP mouth of Sauron should be shunned. No comity or compromise with the 121 Representatives and 6 Senators who objected to the electoral vote. Kick them off every committee they are on.
@OzarkHillbilly: It was worse than weasel:
Missouri governor says Trump ‘absolutely not’ to blame for U.S. Capitol violence
@drj :
THIS. How many of them started backpedaling as soon as they realized the mob was actually doing what they said they would do….. and incidentally put a lot of those enablers at direct risk? How many craven, mealy-mouthed weasels were begging them to stop and “that’s not who we are” simply because they happened to be in the path of the chaos and understood their safety was not guaranteed? Had the mob be just out of liberal blood would these folks have been comfortable standing in the throng and pouring more oil on the fire? Notice Trump ran back to the safety of the WH before continuing to egg them on; he said he would lead them but then noped out to keep tweeting. So many GOP last night rapidly disavowing and stating that they didn’t mean for this to happen, they just wanted to talk about how important it was to Stop the Steal and Take Back the Government. Several even used the word performative and seemed shocked that the rubes didn’t realize it was an act.
You cannot keep hyping people up and not deliver. You cannot continually whip the crowd into a feverish state then expect them to suddenly and quietly go back to docility on command. At some point GOP, you must pay the piper and that time is NOW. Last night proved you don’t have the control you think you do; how many of you begged for them to stop and were ignored? You cannot control the beast you raised and are forced to obey the insane whims of the only one who might be able to. Was it worth it to now live the rest of your life as a slave to the monster you’ve made?
@Scott: Parson is a useless fuck. Hard to believe he got re-elected until I look around at my neighbors.
Trump’s been prohibited from posting of Twitter or Facebook…but he still has access to the nuclear codes.
Isn’t that peachy?
@KM:
I pointed this out last night: That big, brave Trump incited his followers to riot, told them he’d be there with them, and then slunk back to to the safety of the White House to eat hamberders and watch them on tv.
The fools haven’t even noticed–or if they have, they’ve excused him.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I know that Rs are desperately trying to make this a both sides issue.
But on what evidence?
@OzarkHillbilly:
One of the protesters was shot and killed — was she shot by a fellow protester or by the guards? If by the guards then it means they were using live ammo, which means they were taking the attack (quite rightly) very seriously. If by other protesters then its amazing the guards didn’t return fire (since presumably the protesters would have been firing at the guards).
@Northerner:
From reports, she was shot in the chest by a capitol police officer. She died after being transported to a hospital.
The latter may be vaguely true. She did die. She was certainly going to get transported given the circumstances.
She might have been dead at the scene and nobody wanted to call it until a doc weighed in after transport to a hospital.
@Northerner:
Capitol Police would strongly object to be classified as “guards”.
@Northerner: Seeing another video clip of a single Capitol Hill Police Officer with a collapsible baton slowing down a mob moving through a hallway, then up stairs, the thugs were trying to grab the baton out of the officer’s hand, he even drops it early in the video (but picks it up).
My guess would be that the moron who was shot either tried to grab a handgun out of an officer’s hand, or was standing near another moron who tried it.
@owen:
That sounds plausible. If handguns with live ammo were out though, then the Capital police (note the correction from guards) were obviously taking things very seriously (as opposed to some reports that they were handling the protesters with kid gloves) — generally police don’t draw guns unless they’re willing to use them.
I’m amazed they allowed the protesters into the congressional offices. America seems to be a funny place, police shoot people for minor offenses (or even when they’re running away), but allow mass protests (including attacking police, overturning cars, burning buildings) to go on largely unchecked. Most of the world does it in reverse.
@Northerner: were they “taking it seriously” when they took selfies with these neo-confederates? Or when they pulled away barriers? Or how about when there was a token force in those capitol steps?
@CSK: Just to clarify. The nuclear codes are merely various response plans to a nuclear 1st strike. There are still people in the Chain of Command that have to receive the order and execute the plan. At this point, no one is going to take a call from Trump. Pence is calling the shots from the next 13 days.
@Thomm:
Shooting someone, drawing guns with live ammo isn’t taking things seriously? There are more pictures coming out now, and a lot of them have police and security people with drawn guns, and what looks to be tear gas, not to mention hitting people with batons.
Does the criteria for “taking it seriously” require tanks and machine guns?
@Jim Brown 32:
I know, but thanks for clarifying. It was more a rhetorical point that I wanted to make.
If they don’t get rid of Trump via impeachment or the 25th Amendment, how do you suppose they’ll control him for the next thirteen days?
@Northerner:
Being someone who was highly critical of the Police response to BLM protests, this is a bit of a hard topic to write. It can at once be true that (a) some police in the Capitol siege deployed deadly force, and (b) as a whole, the Capitol Police force didn’t deploy/project uniform, extreme, and proactive violence/force against the mob in the same way they did against BLM protests (including the clearing of peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square). It can also be simultaneously true that (c) it appears that some on the Capital Police force were actively assisting the rioters in accessing the capital (something that we DID NOT see during the summer).
This is the problem with binary thinking about these events. Jumping through hoops to get to “both sides” is a hell of a drug.
@Northerner: The operative term is “mass protest”. From what I have observed, both through media and in person, if law enforcement is significantly outnumbered it is not uncommon to pullback, at the very least slowing the spread of the crowd. Several Capitol police had their weapons drawn at barricaded doors of the House chamber that rioters were trying to break through. Once the chamber had been cleared of House members and staff (the officer’s primary responsibility), the officers withdrew and the rioters were able to gain entry. That this happened is a result of some combination of intelligence failure, incompetence, and deliberate malicious actors (and I’m not talking about the rioters).
@mattbernius:
I don’t think it has much to do with “both sides”, at least from my perspective (I’m not an American, so the partisan politics involved are foreign to me). My biggest take from it is the level of violence (from police and protesters) that is taken as normal (or not a serious matter) in America right now is off the charts. In Canada, police shooting protesters with live ammo (which I assume they did both in this and in BLM protests) would be a big deal. It seems to be a secondary or even tertiary point in America.
My guess is that the lack of gun control makes everyone trigger happy — it takes away the sense of having time to think things through. Is there any chance that Biden will be able to push through gun control now that he has congress and senate majority (it would help us up here too, many of our illegal guns come from your neck of the woods).
@mattbernius: I don’t want to be too Pollyanaish, but the video clip of Capitol Police “opening a gate to let through rioters” looks to me like a small number of officers moving out of the way to allow a large push of rioters through a very low density barrier. Likewise, it is my understanding that the Lafayette Square photo op clearing was conducted by Bureau of Prison personnel courtesy of AG Barr (although Metro PD and National Guard were providing perimeter security).
@de stijl: Because we didn’t just kill them all and let god sort them out?
@Thomm:
It looks like there were some very different reactions among the Capitol Police.
Some effectively welcomed them in; other photos show them weapons drawn holding the House chamber doors or trying to hold the mob with pepper spray and batons on the stairs.
@owen:
Fair about that particular video. And investigation is warranted.
And I know that different police forces are involved in all of these incidents. That’s secondary to the larger point.
Also, let’s not forget the Capitol Police’s long-established record of effectively preparing for and conducting pretty physical arrests of other protest movements.
Again, I’m honestly not trying to call for harsher policing. But there are marked differences between the scale and treatment of different groups. And generally speaking, the treatment of a bunch of angry white folks on a vacation riot was different than the treatment of BLM protests (which often escalated into violence due to police responses — as I saw happen multiple times here in Rochester).
Edit: This series of tweets better encapsulates part of what I was trying to say:
The responses might look the same to someone outside the US, but please understand that they are/were significantly different.
@CSK:
By replying to every order or request, “Yes, sir, Mr. Cheeto. It will take two weeks.”
Pence and the cabinet could also attempt a reverse “Dave” strategy. First they put Trump in a comma (put some ketamine in his hamberders or something), then get Alec Baldwin to impersonate him until January 2oth.
@Northerner: How many were arrested? I read 13, which is laughably low considering the #s and what was done. How many had to go to hospitals for treatment, such as getting stitches after having their head bashed in, or losing an eye to a rubber bullet?
One cop fired a gun. You are assuming it was on purpose when accidental firings happen fairly often.
I might quibble with the word “unprecedented” here. Some months back, a similar group in Michigan attempted to occupy the legislative chambers while the legislature was in session in order to intimidate them to take specific actions. More people are going to die.
@Kathy:
Your comment is funny, but I’m well past the point of finding any humor in this mess. Trump is dangerous. He needs to be restrained somehow.
No. Maybe some stuff at the margins.
Robbin ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @RaeMargaret61
This picture is remarkable.
Can we agree that “protesters” of whatever stripe were able to gain access to chambers of congress and offices, is entirely unacceptable?
And that they should be legally responsible?
Some – a lot – of Rs are fuzzy on this point.
I would prefer to nail this point down as it directly impacts the future of American sovereignty under the current Constitution.
Please?
@Northerner: I think you have to distinguish protesters in a public space from rioters trying to enter a restricted building. If the rioters had simply stayed in a public area and gotten out of control, then non-lethal methods would have been used. But people actually entering the Capitol building was, apparently, unexpected and treated like a breaking and entering scenario, which can involve live ammo. It should have never gotten to that point, of course.
@Northerner: my requirement would have been to be in those steps with the same show of force that they had this summer to keep people from even thinking of doing the same. Or using the sonic cannons that were also used to disperse people like this summer. Where were the out of uniform agents grabbing people off the streets in vans (not that I approve..just pointing it out). Would it be too much to ask that they be treated like ADAPT activists that were litterally dragged out of wheelchairs and slammed on the floor to have the termity to agitate for health care? I am not weeping over a shot traitor and nothing if what you say obliviates the kid gloves these people were treated with all damn day and for years.
@JohnSF: true for the people on the ground, but it is the leadership that placed a token force in everyday uniforms on those steps. Individuals are responsible for their own actions or inactions as the case may be, but the leadership and culture is responsible for the weak display of deterrence… especially since this had been planned along all sorts of social media platforms for some time.
How the capitol got overrun by a mob must be investigated today.
The fact that it was overrun demands it.
How did it go so wrong so fast?
WTF?!
This is embarrassing internationally. Shockingly so.
This should not have happened. We know the why already, but how did it happen?
Yesterday was a very big event in our history and we need to figure out what happened ASAP.
@de stijl:
From what I heard on PBS from Republican mouthpieces, the official revised history seems to be that Democrats started this by refusing to recognize the legitimacy of Trump’s election and propagating Fake News about Russian interference and collusion. The impeachment was just a continuation of this, all about the election and not about Ukraine at all, don’t mention Ukraine.
@CSK:
It’s ridicule and mockery, not humor.
Pence, the cabinet, the Congressional GOP leadership, all have the tools to stop trump any time they wish. But they lack the courage to find the will to do so.
Hell, even if the cabinet cannot find consensus for invoking the 25th amendment, they could resign en-masse, including Pence. Or at least threaten to.
@Thomm:
Yes, the leadership needs roasting over this.
What in hell was their contingency planning for this sort of thing?
Do Capitol and DC police co-ordinate effectively for these operations?
etc etc
@mattbernius: Whenever I hear an “expert” talk about “proportionality”, I grimace because I know it means “excess”.
Back to the Bureau of Prisons personnel, they are part of a cadre with training to put down violent prison uprisings and conduct cell extractions. Many of the goons in Portland were from the same group. I don’t want to put Corrections Officers in untenable positions, but most Western nations don’t need these procedures in their prisons, so are those procedures necessary?
WaPo reporting Facebook is banning Trump indefinitely.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/07/trump-twitter-ban/
I see FOX is peddling this “blame the cops” narrative too. In their case it’s a deflection.
I don’t see it that way at all. This was one of maybe a hundred Trump rallies and nothing like this has happened before. It was only a couple thousand people, not the hordes that came with the BLM protests. The police failing to anticipate what happened is hardly an outrage. Nevertheless with only what to my eye looks like a few dozen regular cops and plainclothes capital building security guys they got all the VIPs (a few hundred people) out, and only had to kill one person in the process. Not too shabby.
What’s that I hear? A few dozen mostly-without-full battle-rattle-riot-gear cops failed to keep a few thousand people totally at bay is an outrage? Drop those pearls. Does anyone think that’s enough people to hold barricades? Does anyone think that they should have started firing into that crowd, slaughtering maybe dozens so they had zero access to the building? They held the line until the VIPs were out of harms way, by the look of it. Then they let them in but held the critical corridors. They had enough people to do that. This narrowed their field of fire to those who were seeking to get at the politicians instead of just getting into the building.
IMO: 99.9876450% of the blame belongs with the people who charged the building and those who led them to it.
@dazedandconfused:
If we cannot secure the halls of Congress…?!.
I fucking do not care about the tactics used yesterday. I sincerely want to know why tactics were a salient issue at all.
Protests are fine. Protests happen all the time. I am perfectly okay with protests.
But how the fuck did yahoos penetrate and occupy the capitol?
This is not a regional HQ of random megacorp beset by protesters.
It is the fucking seat of our government. You are eliding the responsibility and duty of fed cops to prevent such an event to occur.
What happened yesterday should never happen. Since it did, we need to figure out how and why security failed to prevent future run-overs of Capitol police.
People knew there were going to be huge crowds demanding access. I knew and I am a podunk.
Yesterday was a massive institutional failure.
I would say that this cannot happen, but it did happen yesterday. It cannot happen again.
When did we become Belarus?
@de stijl:
Re:
Because we’ve always preferred that our capital (and White House) not be staffed or resemble Ft. Knox.
@dazedandconfused:
Not as a matter of routine; but there should be contingency planning for this sort of thing.
And as for “nobody could have foreseen…”
Arieh Kovler@ariehkovler
Dec 21, 2020
@JohnSF: I teared up over that picture. Those women doing their jobs. In fact displaying initiative and courage to do their jobs. And Republicans think the idiots banging on the doors are the heroes.
@dazedandconfused:
What?
We should accept mobs over-running security and occupying the House and Senate chambers because it is tactically difficult?
I do not know where you are going with this but it seems daft to me.
It is someone’s and and full agency’s responsibility to secure the capitol. They have a budget. They have that as their primary responsibility.
Why are you hand waving this failure to do so?
I think this a really big fucking deal.
@Mikey:
Too late, zuck him.
@JohnSF:
Should an investigation ensue, bet the farm there was a contingency plan and it was successfully executed. That plan would not be to ensure they didn’t take the building, not with the regular staff-force available. The plan would be to get the VIPs out before the outer defenses were breached.
I did not say or mean to imply “nobody could have foreseen”, what I am saying is it wasn’t anticipated.
@gVOR08:
Yeah, five years too late, two campaigns, tons of misinformation, and billions of dollars short.
Maybe it’s still better late than never, but there’s a point where “late” means “after much damage has been done.”
@dazedandconfused:
Exactly. One of the often repeated clips showed the mob easily breaking in windows and entering. And yesterday was a day when Congress was doing a largely ceremonial part of the “peaceful transfer of power.” I’m sure that none of leadership wanted to be doing that behind a company or two of LEO in riot gear, since that pretty much defeats the purpose.
@de stijl:
The tactical difficulties stem from numbers and an unwillingness to use large-scale deadly force on mobs unless absolutely necessary. Hey, if something like this is anticipated they can and do bring enough people and stuff to deter most large crowds.
My opinion is the cops are being deliberately scapegoated as a deflection tactic by FOX et al and by some sort of knee-jerk reaction from the left. I don’t know where the heck they are going with that, anyway. Total mystery to me why they would beat on the cops in this.
From what I can see so far the cops did a good job. I don’t expect them to be able to keep a mob out of buildings like these. You can’t expect the regular staff in those places to be able to withstand a mob, not unless you have capital grounds which strongly resemble a prison or a fort, or to have very wide and open fields of fire around them and a willingness to treat protesters like the Izzies treat the denizens of Gaza.
We don’t want that look, and there is insufficient evidence we need that look. Not for something that happened once in a couple centuries.
@Owen Somers:
Completely agree with everything stated here.
What surprises me most is how few people were in the capitol — for all the talk of rampaging mobs, the hallways were pretty clear.
Look at the iconic photos: when the buffalo man is at the podium, there aren’t a huge number of people in the building. Dude with the confederate flag in the hallway is in a pretty empty hallway. There’s one guy in Pelosi’s office, with his feet up.
I don’t know how to reconcile it with the crowds outside. Good on the Capitol Police for not letting more people in, I suppose.
I can only assume that Goren was not talking about a pastor of
the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
@dazedandconfused:
This was predictable. It had already happened in Michigan and Oregon.
Everyone knew they were going to be huge numbers of protesters on Jan. 6. Trump promised it would be a “wild time” in his tweets.
Of the cops deployed, they likely performed well.
But, there were not enough deployed.
This was a massive institutional failure of historic proportion. It should not have happened. It could have been prevented. It was easily foreseen by randos like me.
This was banana republic mob shenanigans.
They over-ran the Capitol Police and occupied the Capitol.
I think you are arguing from a good place and are concerned about over-policing. I respect that, approve of that, and honor that.
But this was a massive fuck-up. A mob over-ran security and occupied our seat of government for hours. I think that you are looking at this tactically, but I do not.
If thieves came for Ft. Knox I’d expect our security to prevent that.
If an entirely predictable mob comes to occupy the Capitol, I expect that it will not happen and will be denied professionally as well.
Please do not hang pro cop arguments on me. I fucking hate cops for valid personal reasons. I am never going to float a pro-cop policy. It would be antithetical.
But we need to fucking secure our seat of government too.
@JohnSF:
Why would we expect otherwise? The Capitol Police are not immune to lies on social media anymore than the population at large.
I’m sure that there were a fair number who were conflicted, but did their job anyway (40% of the population believes these lies, and police tend to be more likely to be Republican, so there have a be a fair number). And, a smaller number who were conflicted and did a poor job.
@de stijl: What I’m trying to think of is what the responses could be that don’t also pretty much do in the notion of “peaceful transfer of power.” What are the poll numbers — 60M Americans believe that the election was stolen? How many states have legislatures where a majority of the members are in that 60M? The Civil War didn’t start because the man in the street necessarily favored it; it started because majorities in state legislatures favored it.
Looks like various agencies are trying to ID and arrest the people who broke into the Capitol. I expect several will end up pleading to gun and trespass and other relatively mild charges. Whatever they get, I hope it’s publicized. This wouldn’t have happened had we treated Cliven Bundy the way he should have been treated.
There will be an investigation into the shooting. If he’d shot a Black BLM protester ranks would close around him. But he has the misfortune of having shot a white woman. He doesn’t have the “scary Black guy” defense. I fear the shooter will end up punished more than any of the protesters. In any case, the woman will be glorified as a martyr in RW media and the shooter will be the goat.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has resigned in protest to the events of yesterday.
@Mister Bluster:
When I was a kid my grandmother took me to an ELCA (Swedish) Lutheran church. Screw those Norwegians.
There was also a super hard-core lot out of Missouri. Can’t remember the acronym.
Religousity was not my thing so it did not stick.
To this day I totally do not get the Holy Spirit. What is the purpose or role? You look like you got invented so there would be three and Christians are programmed to think in threes.
The Holy Spirit / Ghost is basically Bucky Barnes. Whatever role the big boys cannot or should not do gets shunted over. It may or may not be Hydra affiliated.
I am seriously not anti-religious, but I truly do not know what purpose or role Holy Spirit / Ghost fulfills.
@dazedandconfused:
Yes, the evacuation contingency plan worked, thankfully.
However, as you say:
That’s my point.
There should have been expectation of a high probability of mob action beyond the level the Capitol Police could defeat.
Therefore, there should at minimum have been arrangements with the DC police to have an effective force in place between the capitol and where the mob was assembled.
@Michael Cain:
Well, that purpose got pretty well defeated anyway, didn’t it?
@de stijl:
I am genuinely surprised that the WaPo front page does not have crowds of people in front of the white house demanding Trump resign. Maybe they are there and it isn’t that exciting yet.
@gVOR08:
With the Bundy’s it wasn’t an unwillingness on the part of the Feds to prosecute, the local juries wouldn’t convict. it’s a given that with sufficient evidence, DC juries will convict.
@Jen:
Chao is McConnell’s spouse.
@Sleeping Dog:
It still would’ve happened even if the Bundy and his clan got spanked hard by the feds.
This was gonna be. Hard core Rs needed to get their freak on to prove some point about respect or acknowledgment.
I will acknowledge them. They do exist. They over-ran capitol police and occupied the Capitol yesterday. I don’t respect them.
@Jen: She just sees that the jig is up and is getting an early start on her next grift. 🙁
@de stijl: Yes, I know.
Interesting to note that her resignation apparently takes effect on Monday. Wonder why she’s bothering to stick around.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: It certainly helps with the next grift round (she’s one of the Cabinet’s more fiscally corrupt members, IMHO).
From the videos I’ve seen, it appears to me that the woman was shot by Secret Service while trying to break through a window into where Grassley, Pelosi, and possibly Pence were. She was a threat to the Presidential line of succession in the United States of America, and the Secret Service took care of the threat.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Play revolution, get shot in real life.
@Thomm:
You live in a strange country, if shooting and killing a protester is considered treating them with kid gloves. Seriously, you need gun control, because right now the instinct seems to be if someone was shot then they deserved it.
There are already threats on Parler that they’re going to show up in force again on the 19th, and definitely bringing their guns. I’m perfectly fine with lethal force being authorized for all responding police forces and National Guard troops. They really want to play revolution, let’s play.
I’m a tad bit angry today.
@Jen:
Sorry! I was trying to contextualize for those who did not know.
@reid:
It never should have gotten that far is certainly right, but its hard not to think shooting is a first response for many of your police. Like the man who was shot in the back running away from police, or the man who was shot while crawling down a hallway begging for his life. As far as I know, both the police involved got away with it, and I suspect whoever shot and killed the protester will too.
Biden has selected Boston mayor, Marty Walsh as labor sec. Walsh avoids a brutal reelection fight with Michele Wu.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/biden-chooses-boston-mayor-walsh-as-labor-secretary-455899
Also RI Gov Gina M. Raimondo as Commerce Sec.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/business/economy/gina-raimondo-commerce-secretary.html
@OzarkHillbilly:
It might have been accidental — the gun just going off by itself. But I suspect it was already drawn and aimed — a gun falling out of a holster, hitting the ground and firing and hitting someone seems unlikely.
I just don’t get why police killings aren’t a big deal in America. Your police kill 1000+ people every year — according to Wiki its about 34 per 10 million people, many times higher than any other G20 country.
@Northerner: The “peaceful protestors” were outside the building. If she was attempting to gain access to a room that held two and possibly three of the top people in line to become President, well, we pay Secret Service to keep those people alive, and so they did. You may call it “getting away with it”, I call it “lawfully neutralizing a threat to the Presidential line of succession”.
@Jax:
Stay salty, but be cool.
@Northerner:
“Shooting and killing a protestor” would be reprehensible.
Shooting and killing someone engaged in an insurrectionary assault on the national seat of government, and reportedly a threat to senior figures in the Presidential line of succession? Not so reprehensible.
I would certainly expect the police to respect the right of protest outside Parliament; I would expect them to forcefully repel an attempt to storm Parliament.
I would expect the police and/or military to respond with lethal force to a threat to the safety of MP’s or the Royal Family.
@JohnSF:
I give them some lee-way on the anticipation, on account there had been many Trump rallies in the past and a POTUS asking a mob to march on the capital (yup, he did that, bigger than s&#t!) and the crowd actually doing it?!? I don’t recall many pundits warning us of that. Furthermore the preparation would be on the scale of the BLM mobilization. The above doesn’t happen and they get called clowns. Above all in our system the POTUS is the top cop in the land. Calls for such mobilization are supposed to come from the Executive branch!
System breakdown? Absolutely. Should we be blaming the cops? No.
@Jen:
I apologize for appearing patronizing. Certainly not my intent.
@de stijl: I’m trying. I hate where I live right now. People I know and like in real life are insisting it was Antifa and Trump’s still the best President Evahhhh, and it makes me want to scream, especially when they’re all sharing the Parler announcement to Facebook and getting all giddy about MOAR REVOLUTION.
@Northerner: it isn’t her that had been coddled, but right wing movements over time ..don’t be deliberately obtuse, it is unbecoming. Also…look above in what she was doing at the time. Protestor or not, the secret service tends to take their job very seriously unlike your usual beat cop. I bet even in Canada, a person trying to assault a room that contains members of Trudeau’s succession would have the RCMP putting at least one hole in them. I dunno…maybe they would have offered timbits to try to calm that person down, but I highly doubt it.
No acknowledgement over the things I put up an how they could have had a real deterrent presence so it might not have happened in the first place?
Again..why weren’t these people treated half as efficiently as handicapped activists that were agitating for health care? Didn’t see anyone posing for selfies with them.
@de stijl: No worries, I didn’t indicate that I understood/knew of that link. Less sleep than I am accustomed to means my brevity might miss context. 🙂
@dazedandconfused:
I don’t blame the folks on hand. By every report they did well.
This was more than a system breakdown.
This was a fuck-up of historic proportions.
A fore-warned event easily thwarted if correctly staffed.
The breach and occupation could have been easily prevented. Should have been.
This was a massive stain on our country and it did not have to happen.
Raucus protest is fine. It is protected speech. Idiots, but protected idiots. Morons who breached and occupied are felons.
I believe we are talking past each other at this point.
@Jen:
Be well.
I was kinda serious when I suggested opening your own messaging evaluation shop a few months back.
You would kick ass.
@owen:
Just following up on the one video. The person who took it has stated that it appears that the Police abandoned those gates to redeploy. Details are here:
https://twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199360
so my #3 characterization was off (however, there’s a lot of video of police handling these protesters very differently than we’ve seen in other cases, including the video of an officer helping a woman down the stairs. Again, I much prefer that treatment to what we saw in Buffalo for example where they inflicted head trauma on a peaceful pensioner. But it again demonstrates a major difference in tactics and use of force).
@Jim Brown 32:
I had assumed this was the state of affairs. But this exploration of the Nuclear Chain of command sent chills down my spine. The people talking have direct experience with this chain and they are not nervous nellies. TL:DR is: People are chosen specifically to obey that awful order when it comes, regardless of their own reservations. There have been a number of incidents over the years where great lengths were taken to weed out people who might question the order. If the President communicates an order such that the people manning the launch facility get it, they will launch.
What you are hoping is that good, sane people around Trump can keep him from communicating to the launch facility. Think about that for a minute.
@JohnSF:
There have been break-ins in Canada and the UK, where someone got into the Prime Minister’s and Queen’s residences. No one was shot.
@Thomm:
I think you can safely assume I am honestly obtuse (as opposed to pretending to be so), because I simply don’t see how the level of violence that seems to be the norm with American police is anything but kid gloves. If it was just this one event I might be inclined to agree with you, but it seems to be the norm. That was the whole point of BLM protests, wasn’t it? And the ratio of poor people (of any race) killed by police to rich people is almost certainly even higher than the ratio of black men killed to white men. Seriously, how many of the 1000+ people killed by your police every year are millionaires?
I do think its because you don’t have gun control, and so the first reaction is to shoot because of fear of being shot, but its still strange to see people justifying police shooting someone who appeared to be unarmed.
@Jax:
I have a trick that works for me.
When I am stuck in a conversation I do not want to be in a song/ lyric plays in my head.
I don’t give a shit about you. I don’t give a shit about you.
It’s more of a chant than a song. Kinda cheerleadery.
It works for me. There are bullshit people in your life you have to deal with. Pretend to abide and skedaddle asap.
Another dodge is to abruptly bring up a new topic as soon as it is your turn to speak and just fake that what they just said you did not hear at all. “Hey! I just tried a new brand of chocolate stout called *blah* you should check it out if you like stout. I really have to go. You have a great day.”
Don’t let assholes bring you down.
More resignations.
WV lawmaker among the crowd that stormed the Capitol–livestreamed the incursion.
@Northerner:
Ok, I think this gets to the crux of the issue — calibration of definitions.
1. You are correct. In a better world, American police would treat everyone with kid gloves (or at least closer to the treatment in other Western Countries). You are also correct that is fundamentally the argument of BLM (more or less… I’m not going to get into police abolition or refunding at the moment).
2. However, given that *isn’t the case* for Americans. And because of that, we–sadly–have become somewhat more acculturated to this and therefore we can see different levels of response in things that you are lopping together into “equally violent.” We are also, frankly, paying closer attention to these things than you are for obvious reasons. In fact, some of us, like Ozark and myself are involved in Criminal Legal System Reform or Advocacy (to various levels). So while those responses look the same to you, they definitely look different to us.
This is all deeply cultural and to some degree you need an understanding of the history of policing in the US and its connections to things like racism, to appreciate what’s going on here. Trying to apply filters from a different country doesn’t necessarily work here.
Or to put it a different way, it would be like me asking questions like “Why does Canada have two languages? Why not just unite under English? And why isn’t the French spoken in Canada real French? Come on, other countries make that a lot more simple.”
Also doing Rich/Poor and race comparisons is really not a great idea, as race remains a far more defining characteristic of American History than class (which again, is something unique to the American experience, sadly).
You are correct about the systemic wide problem and one of its major contributing factors…you will get no argument from me. But using this incident to conflate those things is insulting to those who actually have been victimized and/or killed wrongly by police. Also, if you look through our history, movements by the undesirables (the poor, minorities, the handicapped) and left wing economic movements are treated much more harshly from the beginning. Are first nations activists treated the same by your authorities as, say…damn
to be honest, I don’t know of many right movements in Canada other than maybe quebec separatists and I am not sure if that really fits…but anyway, the same as one of them? If so…awesome, but that has never been the case here.
Authorities don’t wait for the building to be breached…those people get put down hard or have a huge deterrent presence keeping most from even thinking it might be a good idea to try.
You are trying to make this about one policing issue, it seems, while I am talking about a whole different policing issue.
And…even with your gun control, if the same thing happened to your parliament building and some MP’s were in danger before they could be cleared, I would bet there would also be a seriously wounded, if not dead canadian.
The level of violence in this country for all sectors of society, not just the police, is high, certainly higher than in Canada…
Are you aware of the American Constitution? It has this pesky 2nd Amendment that has been used to curtail serious gun control in this country…
@Northerner:
Because they got,well, sneakily.
And in the cases I can recall were a good distance from the VIP’s; one in the back of the No10 complex, one in the grounds of Chequers, a couple in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and the “private area” of Windso0r Castle.
The exception being Fagan in ’82. Stories vary on that: he made out he had wandered into the Queeen’s bedroom and chatted with her, more credible ones that she had heard a disturbance and left the area.
Let’s say the careers of those responsible for security in these cases did not prosper.
And the intruders were very fortunate.
There was also Marcus Sarjent in the 1980’s (?) who fired off blanks near the Queen; and was lucky not be skewered by a guardsman, who probably only did not shoot because firing high velocity rifle in a crowded street is not recommended.
At any rate, the circumstances were not the same. If the Queen or PM or similar were potentially endangered by a mob in the Palace of Westminster, I would expect results similar to the Westminster attack of 2017: the suspect was engaged with lethal force by a Metropolitan Police Close Protection Officer for the Secretary of State for Defence.
@dazedandconfused: The Capitol police force is 2200 people, and they are responsible for the Capitol, only. This was entirely predictable.
I’m not, for the most part, blaming individual police. Though I think their behavior is proof that the violence we see at a lot of BLM protests is entirely unneeded. However, this was absolutely a failure of their leadership. This wasn’t tens of thousands of rioters overwhelming hundreds of police. It was hundreds of rioters overwhelming dozens of police. This whole thing never had to happen.
@gVOR08:
There is very clear video of the shooting available online. I have watched it, disturbing as it is. The double doors leading to the House chambers were barricaded from within by law enforcement (I am assuming Secret Service as they were plainclothed, but could have been Capitol Police). Members of Congress were still taking refuge in the chamber. One of the mob had smashed the glass in one of the doors, and then, despite repeated warnings from the law enforcement within, the woman attempted to climb through. The law enforcement officer took one step forward, fired one shot, and the woman fell to the floor. She was the only one of the mob who attempted to enter that way. Understandably.
I think the video shows the officer’s action was entirely justified.
It is hard to have a lot of sympathy for the woman, but I still do, because she wasn’t much older than my own daughter and she died for a damnable fucking lie told by a damnable evil man.
@Mikey: To be clear, I want the shooters organization to come forward and say he was following clear orders in the face of a clear threat. In the video I saw I couldn’t see the shooter. Secret Service are more likely, I would think, to have clear policy and to back up their guy. But after the last few decades I have little faith in any law enforcement bureaucracy doing the right thing.
@Kevin McKenzie:
Entirely predictable riot in time and place and number given they gathered to hear Trump spout his nonsense.
Massive failure. Heads will roll (figuratively) screw up. Shameful failure.
@gVOR08: Here’s the one where you can see the officer who fired the shot.
https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1347120276560105475?s=21
Here’s one from another angle.
https://streamable.com/ol6qzd
Looks to me like they were prepared to fire if anyone attempted to breach the doors.
@Mikey: And the edit function has once again deserted us.
In the second video you can see further down the hall a uniformed Capitol Police officer. His weapon is drawn and ready, but it was a plainclothes officer closer to the doors who fired the shot.
There’s a disturbing thread on Twitter….they’re going through all the Getty images and identifying people, and in at least two instances it appears that men heavily armed in military gear entered the Senate chamber carrying zipties, the kind they use for temporary handcuffs. He’s been identified as former military.
Why else would you need flex cuffs unless you were planning on taking hostages?
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1347279463088844800
@de stijl:
What I’m wondering is how is coordination and joint planning arranged between Capitol Police and D.C. Police.
It looks to me that’s the primary foul up: no plan to support the relatively small Capitol Police on site with adequate trained crowd control and barriers between the crowd rally location and the Capitol. No reinforcements for support of such with riot control units.
Once the mob had closed on the Capitol itself, even absent any unprofessional acts by the police (and some have suggested the ones who abandoned the barrier line were DOJ support guys?) it was going to almost impossible to secure the whole complex from inside without a blood-bath.
There should have been contingency planning for this.
@JohnSF:
Yes, as sad as it was to see these brain-dead goons desecrating the Capitol, the police were sorely outnumbered and basically had to allow the mob to roam the building because the other option was just to shoot everyone. But as we saw with the woman, there was a point beyond which lethal force was authorized, and she found it.
@Northerner: The fact that 1000+ people a year get shot by the police is exactly why it isn’t a big deal. It’s the whole “one person dying is a tragedy, one hundred people dying is a statistic” thing.
@dazedandconfused: If it had been Islamists coming in with AK-47s and suicide vests would you be so c’est la vie? Because you can be sure they were watching this on tv yesterday and thinking, “Why did we bother hijacking planes when we could have just walked thru the front door? Next time…”
@mattbernius: I would agree with you on the treatment of these protesters except that the treatment they got seems to be the exception rather than the rule, but still all we’re really seeing here what continually happens when bad people do bad things. We really need better people, and sadly, one of the groups that one would hope would be exemplars of being better people are the Platonic ideal of bad example.
Huh? (delete snark) WTF do you think all the BLM protests that have been happening the past 6 years have been about?
Data at 538 on how different protesters are treated by police.
No, that is not it.I can cite case after case of them arresting white people with guns (Remember Dylan Roof? they bought him a Big Mac) or a white woman driving around shooting up neighborhoods or most recently in South STL when some white meth head shot 2 cops, killing one (the black one, maybe that’s OK?) and still the cops managed to NOT kill him. But a black 12 yo playing with a toy gun in a playground? Kill him… within 4 seconds of getting out of the car. An unarmed black man with a flat tire on the side of the road at 2 AM? Kill him. A black man coming out of a garage with nothing but a cell phone? Kill him. A black man running away? Kill him.
Not that white folks aren’t killed by police, but somehow or other they get the benefit of a doubt no black man even gets.
@Mu Yixiao: Rats, ships, sinking.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Actually, the big Mac (or equivalent) is pretty standard for all prisoners. It’s the quickest and easiest way to feed someone in a holding cell, or who’s going to be stuck in a holding cell. And yes, Black prisoners were given the same bill of fare.
I recall once, when I was a law enforcement consultant, seeing a cell entirely wallpapered with McDonald’s wrappers.
Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors has been running through my head all day. The situation doesn’t fit the lyrics at all. But we’ve seen Republicans’ true colors shining through. Can we now deal with them for what they are? Do we have to put up with them wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming to be patriots?
@OzarkHillbilly:
Did the white guy crawling down the hallway begging for his life get a break? Sorry, but that one really sticks in my mind. I suspect that its rich white guys that get a break, not poor ones (again, how many poor whites are killed by police, vs how many millionaires? I suspect the poor are killed by police at something like a 50 to 1 ratio to the rich). Conservatives have put forward the idea that poor whites have more in common with rich whites than with poor blacks, and for some reason everyone seems to have gone along with it, though from what I can tell that’s nonsense.
But it’s not my country, and I guess its none of my business. I’ll butt out.
@Mikey: Thanks for the links. Twitter won’t let me see the first clip. Says I need to change a sensitive content setting, that I’ve now changed and still get the same message. But in any case it’s clear she breached a security perimeter. I assume they had orders to hold that perimeter and were under general orders to shoot in that situation. You can, in the second video, see half a dozen officers with guns up taking cover in door niches down that corridor they were breaking into. The situation seemed to have been going on for some minutes, so I’d assume verbal warnings had been given. Jumping up and pushing through that window was inviting what happened.
I’ll scratch a pet peeve of mine and note that it was one effective shot, not the panicky, scatter gun, emptying of a magazine we seem to see too often. I wouldn’t be surprised if the commander on the spot had designated one guy as shooter.
I haven’t questioned that, as they say in the cop shows, it was a righteous shoot. She’s going to be a martyr on the right and a cause celebre. I’m just hoping the guys bosses will back him up when GOP senators start pushing on them. And that they’ll keep his name out of the press and web.
@JohnSF:
The DC National Guard, all 1100 of them, were called up on Monday. As best we know now, Trump refused to deploy them. Pence and a couple of other underlings did issue those orders, quite possibly illegal orders, but only after the mob had broken into the Capitol. The Guard was nowhere close to where they needed to be.
@CSK: This was before he ever got to jail.
I do not know this one, but as I said, “Not that white folks aren’t killed by police, but somehow or other they get the benefit of a doubt no black man even gets.”
As you said, “it’s not my country,” and I can assure you, while class does weigh in, I as a working class white man was accorded breaks few if any black men ever received. Haysoos christos, it’s not even close. Race IS the dividing line in American society. Probably every job I ever got in my life, I wouldn’t have if I had been black, and I know I wouldn’t have on at least a half dozen or more, and a half dozen others I got explicitly because I was white and not afraid of black people. Most people refuse to admit how the existence of a black man can cause incontinence in white people. My interactions with cops? Not one of them I wouldn’t have ended up in jail, or worse.
Race defines America like no other factor can. It is our original sin, and we still refuse to face that fact.
So if Trump pardons himself, does he list everything he wants to pardon himself for? What about the Trump kids and Don Jr’s girlfriend? I mean, this fucker KNOWS they’ve committed crimes they’ll need a pardon for?
Good thread, read the whole thing.
@Michael Cain:
Yes, that’s true.
And it may be where the advance planning fell over: plans assumed Guard would handle any Capitol exclusion perimeter and/or reinforcement role.
But I was thinking of just the Capitol and D.C. Police forces excluding the DC National Guard.
D.C. Police surely have crowd/riot control trained units.
I’m thinking some persons in the Capitol/DC coordination set up I am assuming might think: “what if the Guard aren’t available?” and set up a contingency tree for that.
Normally a very low probability scenario; but post November the probability went up appreciably.
At least that’s what I think I’d think if Cynical Paranoid Me was on the committee.
One of the most frustrating things is the number of people who don’t understand that the first amendment applies to the government restricting speech.
Yale law school graduate U.S. Senator Josh Hawley is whining on Twitter that his loss of a book deal is a first amendment issue and that he’ll see the publisher in court.
Not sure what confidence level to put on this. but have seen a few reports around that at least some in the Senate chamber breach were a particular group, moving together.
John Scott-Railton@jsrailton
Also at Bellingcat.
Several now ID’d as ex military.
Carrying ziplok cuffs.
Some thought (not confirmations) re. “associates” of Flynn, also known groups of “contractors”.
@Jen:
I suspect Hawley understand the legalities perfectly well.
I also suspect he understands that the base he’s playing for understand the legalities hardly at all.
Pure cynicism to pander to the “But muh rites! Im been so persecuted!” crowd.
@JohnSF: I was really creeped out by that thread. There are the “selfie guys”, who were in it for the LULZ and the “likes” on social media, and then there were these other motherfuckers. All Democrats and Vice President Pence were in actual danger yesterday.
@Michael Cain:
Thanks for that. There’s a lot of speculation that Pence is behaving as acting President. Seems to me more likely someone said to Pence with a wink and a nod, “I can’t get ahold of Trump, say it’s OK with you and I’ll release the Guard.”
@Kathy:
Excellent link. Thanks!
@gVOR08:
Aztec Camera has a truly killer cover of True Colors. Check it if you want.
@Jen:
He probably does know better. He’s just playing to the crowd.
John Ashcroft now says the worst thing he ever did in his life was support Hawley.
@CSK:
Not Ashcroft, but Jack Danforth. Danforth was a reasonable Republican, and very moderate in his views. Ashcroft is the one who had statute breasts covered when he was Attorney General.
I suspect Hawley knows and that the “take them to court” will be some small point of the contract he signed.
Still, he looks like a whiny fool. As Mara Liasson responded, “aren’t there any other publishers?”
@Jen:
God, yes. What a stupid mistake on my part. Memo to self: Never post before coffee.
As for Hawley…I didn’t think I could hold any greater contempt for him. Seems I was wrong about that, too.