Rioters storm Capitol
Woman killed as Trump backers lay siege to ‘people’s house’
A woman is dead and several police officers are in the hospital after violent proTrump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a gambit seeking to undercut democracy and stop the transfer of power.
Even for a Capitol building that has seen centuries of protests and even violence — including a 1954 shooting involving Puerto Rican nationalists — the images that came out of Wednesday’s riot were particularly striking, with members of Congress ducking and covering as Capitol Police with guns drawn stood behind barricaded doors.
One woman was confirmed to have been shot and killed as the mob of Trump loyalists broke into the building where Congress meets.
The National Guard and state and federal police were called in, and an evening curfew was declared in Washington.
At least 12 people were arrested, and Capitol Police, tasked with guarding the area, reportedly had several injured officers.
The protestors were seeking to overturn Trump’s loss in the November election. Before the rioting froze operations on the Hill, members of Congress were debating a Republican-led challenge to the Electoral College results from Arizona, one of several expected from Trump’s allies as they attempted to block President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Trump and his allies had stirred up the crowd in the morning, with the president urging a crowd of thousands assembled near the White House to march to the Capitol — and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani calling for a “trial by combat.”
After rioters breached the Capitol building, breaking windows and pushing into the congressional chambers and offices, Trump tweeted a minute-long video telling them to “go home in peace” — but adding that they were “very special people” and that he backed their cause. Later in the day, Twitter reportedly locked Trump out of his account due to his spreading of conspiracy theories.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, a South Boston Democrat, placed the blame for the rioters squarely at Trump’s feet.
“He instigated them, he directed them,” Lynch said in a phone interview with the Herald. “The key moment is when President Trump addressed them earlier today and told them to get up to the Capitol, and that’s when all the groups from all those areas converged on the Capitol. He instigated this whole effort to disrupt Congress.”
Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Edward Markey and U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Seth Moulton were among those who swiftly called for
Trump to be impeached — again — or removed from power through the 25th Amendment, which allows for Cabinet members to take power away from an unfit president.
“The commander in chief needs to be relieved of his command,” Moulton told the Herald from an unspecified holding location where he and others on the Hill were shepherded by Capitol Police amid the chaos.
“This came from the very top. This is an attempted coup by the president of the United States,” Moulton said, adding, “He’s inciting violence against his own government. This is a man whose job it is to keep us safe. Instead he’s putting his country in peril.”
Moulton, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said, “I expected this in Iraq. I never expected this in Washington, D.C.”
Bostonian Lou Murray, a Trump surrogate, was one of a dozen busloads of Bay Staters that headed to D.C. to attend the protest.
“The vibe is defiantly joyful,” Murray told the Herald just as people began to breach the Capitol, saying that the message to Republicans is that they need to keep fighting and have Trump’s back.
“If they hadn’t smelled the coffee before this time, they’re getting an extra big dose right now,” he said.
Biden, two weeks away from being inaugurated, called on the “mob to pull back” and said their actions “border on sedition.”
“Our democracy is under unprecedented assault unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times,” he said from Wilmington, Del.