There were clear examples of failures like the police letting them in or taking selfies with them. We'll see what oversight gets applied to the Capitol police... https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/capitol-riots-polic...
I wouldn't say that's even a fair characterization. Per the capitol police website they have 2,600 officers and a budget of $460 million. It honestly just ... didn't look like they were trying very hard. They managed to arrest what, 14 people? Compare that to the BLM protests on the west coast where unmarked vans of feds were literally rolling up and black bagging people off the street.
USCP is charged with protecting Congress, and I think members of congress should be thinking hard about whether the police were complicit in what happened today.
Let's not lose perspective.
In the protests outside the Portland federal courthouse building, police held out for weeks while insurrectionists threw bombs [0] and incendiary devices [1], attacked officers with hammers [2] and blinding lasers [3], and tried to breach the courthouse with crowbars and power saws [4]. Nightly arson attempts set fires at, around, and inside the courthouse [5]. The protestors' goal- as stated in their extensive graffiti [6]- was to attack police, breach the courthouse and destroy public property, much as they had done in earlier riots [7]. One stabbed a black conservative journalist in the stomach [8]. Many were arrested carrying illegal guns and ammunition [9].
In response, and after local law enforcement abandoned the courthouse by order of Portland's Mayor Wheeler, federal agents arrested suspects in accordance with the law. They read suspects their rights, treated them fairly, and in most cases- thanks to an extremely permissive District Attorney [10]- released them within 48 hours of arrest.
What happened in Portland (and Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, and other American cities) this summer was also undeniably insurrection, and undeniably much more violent. Despite this, police in Portland never shot anyone in the back, much less fatally.
Call today's insurrection what it is, but be consistent.
[0] https://twitter.com/thetypeofguy69/status/129308897288596275...
[1] https://katu.com/news/local/molotov-cocktail-rattles-portlan...
[2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/portland-man-charged-assa...
[3] https://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/federal-officers...
[4] https://twitter.com/Clypian/status/1286906816018841600
[5] https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-police-less-lethal...
[6] https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/protesters-h...
[7] https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/portland-man-charged-may-...
[8] https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/07/man-knifed-in-back-...
[9] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/26/portla...
[10] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/no-charges-for-many-ar...
2) I think the major difference in the left’s eyes is that those protests were against police brutality and racism, whereas this is an attack on our democracy and an attempt to overrule a free and fair election. Motives matter
3) Invading the capital building wielding deadly weapons is (pretty objectively) more serious than attacking the outside of a single federal courthouse (not to minimize that of course)
The Portland courthouse siege- OP's chosen example- was led by violent white anarchists. Their motive was to topple the government. Portland's Black Lives Matter activists complained many times that their cause and movement had been hijacked [0][1][2].
The people who invaded the capitol today, at least some, probably thought they were protecting democracy. They may have thought they were defending election integrity. They were wrong. That doesn't mean they are evil or amoral. It means they are misinformed and misled. Using them as a foil to downplay other, much more violent unrest is neither helpful nor informative.
I haven't seen photos of armed rioters in the capitol. If you have some, please link them.
[0] https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/professor-focus-of-po...
[1] https://komonews.com/news/local/black-people-in-portland-str...
[2] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-04/black-lives...
What they thought is irrelevant in a country that believes in the rule of law: they were attacking the highest institution of one branch of government with the express purpose of forcing them to overturn the legal result of the election and install their preferred president. This is an (attempted) insurrection, and there are no two ways around it.
Comparing this to an attack on a courthouse is patently absurd. Especially since the courthouse was not attacked for 'toppling the government' - I can't even imagine where you came up with that - but because it was known that arrested/kidnapped protesters had been held inside the courthouse building. In general, none of the BLM or Antifa protesters are interested in "toppling the government" - they are interested in "toppling" the police and in stopping the white nationalist fascists that police are openly supporting from taking over the country.
Yes, I called it insurrection earlier. You've replied to my comment out of context of the reply which preceded it, so your strawman of me doesn't make any sense.
>they are interested in "toppling" the police and in stopping the white nationalist fascists that police are openly supporting
I wrote a longer reply to your comment, but then I deleted it. DC metro police are more than 50% black, it's a joke that they would "openly support white supremacists."
Trying to draw any sort of equivalence is insincere.
And honestly any one who breached or attempted to breach the courthouse or the Capitol (the building or the property) should go to jail for a long time. So in that sense, we agree.
What do you think the establishment would have done if BLM protesters stormed congress?
Stop projecting about being a hypocrite.
>What do you think the establishment would have done if BLM protesters stormed congress?
Those rioters have a well documented history of destroying federal property, attacking federal officers, employees, etc. What do you think?
It appears the DC leadership and the Pentagon wanted to avoid a show of force that mimicked what happened during the summer, trying to learn from their mistakes during the protests triggered by Floyd’s death.
Boy, I wonder if the fact that these guys basically just goofed around and took pictures instead of burning down the capitol (like what happened in the Portland courthouse) had any bearing on that.
[0] https://www.fox5dc.com/news/woman-shot-killed-after-pro-trum...
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/live-blog/electora...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/pipe-bomb-rnc...
Not sure if I understand the point you're trying to make.
They shouldn't have been outmatched in the first place. The protest was planned and the information was extremely overt. Something went horribly wrong for this to happen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/pipe-bomb-rnc...
1. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/06/us/washington-dc-pro...
- At least one flash-bang (probably) and one tear gas grenade (definitely) were used on the capitol steps.
- Their duty as police is to protect and serve, so shooting would have been a terrible idea. Evacuation is not difficult in an ultra-hard target like the capitol, and a lot of civilians had bags, some of which definitely contained firearms. I also heard some shouts about fetching guns from hotel rooms (we did not stay overnight in the city). A gun battle would have been catastrophic on both sides.
And repeated examples of disregard for collateral damage and proportionality during enforcement like: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ups-driver...
Protocol changes are made like ones with regards to high speed chases but often only after a lot of hubris in which police and/or bystanders die
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/woman-shot-killed-after-pro-trum...
[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/ashli-babbitt-tweeted-qanon-...
But the systemic failure was the lack of support from the President himself and the deployment of the national guard.
You want cops to be more like stoic stormtroopers? If every cop out there took a selfie with rioters, it would have been easier to manage them by a degree. Imagine hundreds of selfies with cops were posted in right wing social media, how will that not make right wing protestors have a nicer attitude towards the cop in the future?
what's really the downside of letting this happen? Not focused on crowd control? This is also crowd control.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-...
But when the time came today, there were no tear gas or 40mm rounds, no LRAD. The security simply didn't show up when the expected crowd was percieved to be aligned with the police.
This is a consistent pattern throughout our law enforcement system.