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Comment by shadowfacts | Hacker News Reader

It is despicable how tepid the police response to armed rioters storming the Capitol has been compared to the response to BLM protests over the summer.

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The police specifically allowed the terrorists into the building. They are on the same side.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1346924307692318723

Or perhaps they were more focused on getting the people inside to safety than they were about the actual physical building.

https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1346920198461419520?s=0...

And, you know, taking selfies with them.

The point stands: the summer BLM protests in DC were marching in the closed-off streets around the White House and were met with even stronger resistance from the police.

Why would capital police escort armed rioters into the Senate building for "safety" if their job is to ensure the safety of the Senate building, Senators, and staff?

This is a backwards argument. The police didn't do their jobs. They were even seen taking selfies with the trespassers: https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1346920198461419520

Wow, that's unbelievable. What possible explanation could there be for this?

84% of police are Trump voters. That's the explanation.

A handful of cops and hundreds of people in an angry mob? Is it really a mystery why they didn't fight too hard to keep the barriers shut?

It’s the US capitol, it’s incredibly surprising. It’s outrageous. There’s no lack of adjectives.

Police, like everyone else, are not perfect automatons... there is always the possibility of any, physically possible, behaviour occurring in any place and in any time.

Of course it is always possible to modulate people’s behaviour through incentives and so on, to achieve a very high probability that they will behave in certain ways.

In this case it seems that the balance was in favor of the protestors.

Yes, how convenient this time, in comparison to the BLM protests which were met with militarized police against peaceful protestors.

I think the definition they used of "peaceful" (given context) was different.

It's a pretty straight-forward explanation, just one that people don't like to think about:

Pigs can't be trusted. They like to pretend they're protecting people and doing the right thing. But they're just bullies in uniform. Never trust any of them. Ever. "My dad is a cop though and..." no. If there was a single good cop, they would have stopped this. Fucking pigs. Your dad is a pig. Get over it.

Maybe if cops had better training, they would stop something like this and focus on protecting us. But they don't, and they didn't. They're pigs. Don't be another person who buys into the pigs' lies.

This is not an unacceptable attitude towards any group of people.

It's also the kind of rhetoric that has driven so many in law enforcement into Trumpism.

It's quite unfair to call them terrorists when they've harmed no one and destroyed nothing. Remember, riots are the voice of the unheard!

They are disrupting political process via force in the name of ideology. They're domestic terrorists.

The standard was set last summer. Leftists spent three months torching police stations, attacking courthouses, looting businesses, and confronting politicians in their homes. I continue to be assiduously reminded that none of this constituted terrorism. Don't see why this should be treated any differently.

Sure, but they didn't interfere in the election of the President. Open your eyes.

Both you and the folks replying to you are painting with a broad brush.

Only some small portion of these protests are likely to be violent bad actors, and the proper protesters should not be disrupted by law enforcement

Show me the politician inciting the Summer's arsonists to destruction.

There are always people taking advantage of or inciting chaos to do reckless things. They need to be tried and, if found guilty, punished. Even if they're the president.

Show me the politician inciting the Summer's arsonists to destruction.

"People over property" is probably the most direct encouragement of property destruction.

I saw a video on twitter of a window getting destroyed.

There is a photo going around of a man carrying off a dais across the Rotunda. The British web site I saw it on made a joke about Antiques Roadshow.

At least one person has been shot. https://twitter.com/AP/status/1346918654076723202

> It's quite unfair to call them terrorists when they've harmed no one and destroyed nothing.

People were harmed and property was destroyed. There's plenty of videos of fights breaking out and capitol windows being broken.

https://twitter.com/search?q=washingtondc%20windows%20until%...

I thought “people over property”? This seemed like a “mostly peaceful” protest. Or have the rules changed now that it’s the other side doing it?

Four people are dead. The building was ransacked. Bombs were placed. There were people obviously planning kidnapping (kidnapping at the least, most likely the plan included murder). This was not a peaceful protest.

Please don’t report rumors as facts.

The only dead person was one of the protestors.

If you check the news I think you'll see my information was correct. Please don't allege rumormongering when you may just be missing facts.

> they've harmed no one

Besides the democratic process

> destroyed nothing

Besides the capitol

> the voice of the unheard!

I've been hearing about them weekly for the last 4 years and I'm not even in the US

They broke into the Capitol building. Smashed windows. They've attempted to break into the House and Senate chambers.

It's true. "terrorism" is a bad word and we should not use it. The definition prohibits an objective meaning.

And I would rather see this police response for BLM, than that response for these people.

Say the dead comment I can't reply to:

> Thats probably because you hate black people more than you respect Democracy.

this is extra funny to me because it is also mathematically bogus. I'm saying I very much don't want the cops harassing BLM protests, even if it the price is letting these protests vandalize the Capitol building.

Maybe poster meant "That's probably because you like black people more than you respect Democracy". To which I answer, "...you call the Senate Democracy?"

This was an act of political intimidation intended to derail a legislative body's constitutional duties.

It absolutely fits the definition of terrorism.

All I read on HN is how terrorism isn't a big deal, doesn't kill many people.

So this might be terrorism, but no big deal right?

> It’s quite unfair to call them terrorists when they’ve harmed no one and destroyed nothing.

There have been quite a number of injuries and property damage, deployment of chemical irritants by the mob against law enforcement, and several explosive devices identified and defused in the attempt to use violence and threats of further violence to overturn the results of the recent election.

> There have been quite a number of injuries and property damage, deployment of chemical irritants by the mob against law enforcement, and several explosive devices identified and defused

You're right, I've revised my view of the incident. I now see this constitutes sedition, an attack on our very republic.

For consistency, I've also reconsidered my view of the BLM riots. In light of the billions in property damage; the tens of direct deaths and thousands of ensuing murders; the violent mob attacks on law enforcement, replete with "chemical irritants" and Molotov cocktails; all on a scale 1e3 to 1e5 larger than what's happening in DC; I have to conclude they were a grave act of terrorism.

I'm confused by this video, what evidence is there that this is "allow[ing] the terrorists into the building"? All I see is law enforcement opening a gate. The Twitter account appears to be a random unverified person, so I can't rely on that either.

Not saying the police response has been perfect, but this video doesn't say much about that.

> All I see is law enforcement opening a gate.

That is literally letting them in. They didn't stand their position. They literally walked backwards and let the crowd in.

"Allow[ing] the terrorists into the building" doesn't follow from a single shot of opening a gate. For all I know, law enforcement is funneling people away from a position that they recently decided should be cleared. I have no idea (and as far as I can tell, neither does anyone else here).

That shot is right in front of the building basically. The police opened barricades to let people even closer to the building. Unless the police has some sort of amazing 4D plan they are not letting us in on, which is not likely given the events of today, there is no strategic reason to clear that area. They're just letting the protestors in.

The last few seconds very clearly shows more people already "let in" on the other side of the gate. More context is needed.

The biggest problem to me is twofold: - there were very very few law enforcement there beforehand. Compare to BLM where there were thousands of storm troopers, tanks, etc camped out before the similarly obviously publicized protests occurred. Here is a comparison photo of what they had in front of the monument before the LEGAL BLM protest this summer [1]

- the 'resistance' was very weak at least at first. The videos of the 'storming' didn't show much resistance, no gas, no rubber bullets, no attempt to hold the line. here is a 'selfie' [2] which to be fair doesn't show cop actively participating, but does show him just standing there. There are some photos of guns drawn trying to protect the floor, obviously out numbered once they secured Members I understand completely retreating. But the main uniformed officers at the entrances didn't act.

It's a stark difference. My story is that here in Denver I was gassed, before curfew, before an unlawful assembly was declared, during a peaceful protest this summer. They shot more than a few eyes out of their sockets with rubber bullets. A judge had to restrain the Denver police for their violence.

Compare to today it took a LONG time for them to deploy these same weapons, and it doesn't even look like they used tear gas/irritants at least in the first videos, just smoke; unlike what they gassed us with and those in Lafayette Park and across the country.

1 https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/national-guard-lincoln-memor... 2 https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1346920198461419520

this is old thread and I can't edit, but now that more info has come out for the record part #1 I don't believe anymore. The videos are shocking and disgusting.

This was 1000% a failure from the top, there are lots of videos of these poor uniformed officers on the outer lines outnumbered 1000 / 1 with no gear, no tear gas or other riot weapons, fighting back but just getting trampled, shot with tear gas, hit with bat things, etc. It looks like instead of refusing to respond they didn't have the equipment to.

While the many were brave, there are definitely still some sympathizers and participants for instance WaPo has quotes that there were off duty officers of the law flashing their badges to get in.

i think good chance we'll see the evidence it was intentional negligence denying support/materials/gear and intentionally delaying a response on the part of Trump's DOJ etc.

Send out the subpoenas, and interview this weekend -> vote Monday.

these and so many more, but this focuses on the outer 'rings' https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer/status/134696651499014963... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJOgGsC0G9U

> It is despicable how tepid the police response

Having been gassed and flashbanged all summer in Portland while protesting for Black Lives, the last word I can imagine using to describe police restraint is "despicable." I don't wish that shit on anybody.

Yeah. I understand the unfortunate symbolism of right-wing intruders taking the chambers but I still think in terms of injuries/ fatalities while staff and lawmakers were evacuated, this was a successful de-escalation. (This [well, 'taking' the parliament] happened in Germany, too, and no-one was talking about it anymore days later because nothing really happened.)

It is unfortunate though, that this strategy is only seemingly applied to white people.

> It is unfortunate though, that this strategy is only seemingly applied to white people.

It is much more than unfortunate.

I think the double standards are despicable.

You're right, practicing restraint is very important. What I meant is that the difference itself is what's despicable. An actively hostile, antagonistic response to protestors who were almost entirely peaceful versus doing almost nothing to impede armed rioters breaking into the Capitol.

It seems widely agreed that 93% of BLM protests were peaceful [1]. That remaining 7% slice was responsible for $1-2 billion of property damage [2], on par with a serious natural disaster. I don't know how someone can continue to use the "mostly peaceful" line with a straight face.

[1] https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/ [2] https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a4...

If I flipped a coin and it came up heads 93% of the time would you say it came up mostly heads?

I feel like people are just talking past each other on this. Yes the protests were technically mostly peaceful, but if the loss from a violent protest is 15x the magnitude of the gain of a peaceful protest, the impact is no longer mostly peaceful. I do not think this extreme minority should warp one's overall opinion of BLM for the record, but I do think the lack of acknowledgement for the damage that was caused is counterproductive.

Last I heard, 50% + 1 is the definition of "mostly". 93% is "overwhelmingly". To be clear, any property damage or loss of life is a tragedy but "mostly peaceful" isn't just accurate, it's an understatement.

Point taken, but by this standard, we could defend drunk driving as overwhelmingly safe, war as overwhelmingly non-fatal, Vioxx as overwhelmingly heart-healthy, ISPs as overwhelmingly customer friendly, etc etc.

It strikes me as pyschopathic to endorse actions that stand a 7% chance of ruining numerous innocent lives.

I didn't endorse any of the violent protests. But I don't understand your analogy at all. Drunk driving is never ok. Are you saying any kind of protest is never ok because it has a chance of turning violent? confused face

There are over 110M drunk driving incidents in the US every year and nearly 7M crashes, drunk or otherwise [1][2]. If we conservatively attribute all of these crashes to drunk drivers, we find that 94% of drunk driving causes no damage or injury. It is, to borrow your words, overwhelmingly safe.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/im...

[2] https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-highway-...

I ask you again, are you saying protests of any kind are never ok? Because that's what it sounds like you're saying.

All I ask is that your social movement be less injurious to society than being wasted behind the wheel.

Do you have any evidence of armed rioters storming anything? The only video I have seen is people "armed" with flags, signs, banners, phones, and cameras. Has anyone been beaten to a pulp? Have buildings been looted, vandalized, or burned down yet? "BLM protests" gained a well deserved reputation before the police responses became aggressive. I don't recall the police doing much of anything until after they allowed "peaceful protesters" to storm and burn down the police precinct and the rioting/looting began.

Several instances where they vandalized and destroyed tens of thousands of dollars of camera equipment belonging to reporters

https://twitter.com/shomaristone/status/1346941715895250949

https://twitter.com/Journo_Christal/status/13469458353685012...

Also, WTF do you mean by any evidence of buildings being looted or vandalized? Have you stuck your head in sand or not seen the rioters destroying shit in the Capitol? Just look up any legitimate media source or anything on twitter from today. They also fucking placed pipe bombs and explosives in several locations.

Were they destroying property and throwing molotov cocktails at them like Antifa/BLM did over the summer?

Yes. They were smashing windows and doors in the Capitol. They destroyed press cameras and other recording equipment. I didn't see any reports of molotov cocktails explicitly but they were using pepper spray and other similar sprays against the police.

Obstacles to get in, as opposed to BLM's/Antifa's indiscriminate violence and destruction against anything and anybody nearby.

Here are those molotov cocktails: https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/134727820088436326...

So none were actually used?

I think they've responded well. All the congresspeople were evacuated safely, I expect that if they had any chance of causing harm there the police response would have skyrocketed.

What you had after the evacuation was complete was just a few fools breaking some windows, posing on the dias for Twitter likes, and wandering the hallways. I'm surprised they haven't spray painted their message on the walls yet.

Government property gets vandalized all the time, and can be replaced. The last thing you want to do is to kill these people who have been trapped in a cult of disinformation and turn them into martyrs, possibly building into a civil war. Currently, the response makes them look weak, but at the end of the day they'll all just leave, hopefully without loss of life.

That civil war must be avoided at all costs, and if a tepid-looking response, a few of them getting away without being arrested, a few panes of glass, and some carpet cleaning are what that costs, then I'm more than happy to pay it.

I'm less enthusiastic about the criminals at the top escaping prison time, as Joe Biden seems intent on allowing per his messaging, but again, if prosecuting everyone complicit in the previous administration's crimes has a 1% chance of inciting civil war, well, it's just not worth it.

Other than political viewpoints, I don't really see much difference.

BLM they had military out in full force, even though BLM was non-violent protests. Flip side this terrorism event was known to be coming and they did very little to prepare for it. Nor are they stopping it with any great haste.

Well, now the National Guard has been deployed, so I suspect we'll soon see a sharp change in atmosphere

The BLM riots cost about $1-2 billion dollars of property damage [1]. Taking as given the standard gov't value of life of $9M, this works out to 110-220 life equivalents. This would qualify the BLM riots as one of the deadliest terror attacks to ever happen on US soil.

[1] https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a4...

Hundreds of the BLM protests were violent (7%).

> BLM they had military out in full force, even though BLM was non-violent protests.

The military only became involved after local governments gave "protesters" space over multiple days and emboldened the idiots to the point local police were overwhelmed.

What evidence do you have that they are armed? In every piece of media I've seen, no one has anything in their hands.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/06/us/washington-dc-pro...

Only 5 guns? Then why didn't "BLM protesters" qualify for "armed rioters"? They were armed with far more than the Trump supporters I have seen.

NYT is reporting at least 5 guns seized so far, 13 arrested. Early numbers and not hard to extrapolate that many who got out when it was open season could also be armed.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/06/us/washington-dc-pro...

Don't forget the explosive devices neutralized by the police.

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