Double standard seen in Wednesday’s Capitol attack

GREENWICH — As a mob of angry Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, Greenwich resident Nicole Rincon watched from her home, and recalled the Commitment March she attended in Washington D.C. in late August.

While people easily approached the legislative building this week, security forces at the previous, Black Lives Matter event had delineated clear boundaries within which demonstrators could move, she said. She remembered a large police presence at the Capitol that day, clearly preventing any access to the building.

“Everything was secure, not just the steps,” Rincon said. “I mean, you couldn’t even get to the Capitol building. Everything was blocked off.”

The predominantly white mob’s evident confidence in breaking the law Wednesday — and the lack of meaningful preventive measures or a swift response from police and other high-level officials, including President Donald Trump — “reinstates everything that we’ve known,” she said.

Across Connecticut, Washington D.C. and the nation, many people took to social media following the storming of the Capitol Wednesday to decry what they said is an evident double standard in law enforcement and government up to the highest level. Had the mob been predominantly Black, many said, it would have been met with greater force, more people would have suffered consequences and the Capitol building would have been secured before the nearby protest, which set off the violence, ever began.

“Because it was essentially a bunch of white people they didn’t take it seriously,” said Will Love, founder of the Danbury Area Justice Network. “[Officials thought] ‘What’s the worst they can do?’ Now we know what the worst thing they can do is.”

Stamford native Tim Frazier, who like Rincon has been a leader in the local activist group Justice for Brunch, said he felt a mix of emotions as a young Black man watching the events unfold.

“First, it was comedy — to keep from losing my mind — because I can’t even believe that these people were allowed to riot in the Capitol without being met with rubber bullets and tear gas — the same way Black Lives Matter protesters were met,” he said.

“And then (my feeling) changed to fear, because I was like, ‘Wow, the leader of the free world incited this in amatter of two hours and it took him all day to finally get on national television and give the weakest (response),’” Frasier said.

In July, after some of the protests following the killing of George Floyd turned violent, Trump Tweeted: “Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings ... will be prosecuted ... MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON.”

His tone was starkly different on Wednesday after his supporters attacked and defaced the Capitol.

“I know you’re hurt,” he said in a video, before he again stated that the recent election was stolen from him, an accusation repeatedly debunked.

“You have to go home now. We have to have peace,” Trump said. “We have to have law and order … So, go home. We love you. You’re very special.”

Mike Lawlor, a professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven, spent Thursday morning talking to experts with knowledge of the Capitol police and their ways of operating.

“What they made clear is, law enforcement in Washington D.C. is more than capable of protecting the United States Capitol from pretty much any kind of incursion,” Lawlor said. “And they didn’t do that yesterday. And why not?”

Photos from the Black Lives Matter protest in the summer show a phalanx of heavily armed federal, state and local police guarding Washington.

“I think the most obvious explanation to me is that they didn’t feel that a bunch of white people would be a threat to the U.S. government,” Lawlor said. “Notwithstanding the fact that for weeks and months leading up to this, there was plenty of indication that this is exactly what they had in mind.”

One member of the crowd who breached the Capitol was shot and killed by police. But veterans of civil rights struggles in America said the contrast between Wednesday and past events cannot be denied.

Frederick J. Streets, former

Chaplain of Yale University and senior pastor of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church in New Haven, attended the 1995 Million Man March in Washington and said he knows many people who were at the March on Washington in 1964.

“Those gatherings and many other marches for civil rights since then led by African Americans and their allies were incredible movements and examples of disciplined, nonviolent protest,” he said. “Those protesters were often met with violence that they endured without retaliating with violence.

“Most of the people we saw recently storming the Capitol seemed not to be people of color,” Streets said. “They were not treated with the violence from law enforcement that would have been used if those protesting were people of color.”

Danbury’s Solomon James, a 21-year-old Black man who helped organize a Black Lives Matter protest in June, watched Wednesday’s events through pained eyes.

“There’s two different Americas,” James said Thursday. “There’s white America where you don’t live in fear of consequences.

Then there’s Black America where you’re fighting for actual causes and issues that revolve around your race or religion … and you’ll get shot down or put down because of your skin color.”

In “white America,” James said, “you can storm one of the most secure locations in America with no consequences.”

Rabbi Ari Rosenberg, executive director of the Association of Religious Communities in Danbury, also remembered a past event when watching reports from Washington Wednesday.

“I’m troubled by the fact that the president previously ordered tear gas against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in order to create a photo opportunity in which he exploited a Bible at a church for political purposes,” Rosenberg said, referring to Trump’s June walk across Lafayette Square to hold up a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. “Yet, thousands of violent protesters can parade Trump flags and racist Confederate flags inside the Capitol Building and simply go home unscathed, undeterred, even empowered.”

David McGuire, executive director of the Connecticut American Civil Liberties Union, said “situations like the one we saw at the Capitol yesterday highlight and remind us about the unfairness and inequities in policing.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., has called for an investigation examining how the Capitol was breached and authorities’ response.

Mark Sherman, whose Stamford law firm has handled civil rights cases for more than 20 years, said a closer look at police policies and directives is necessary before passing judgment.

“You can’t judge the police from your living room,” he said. “That’s why we examine bodycam footage, audio recordings and eyewitness statements to understand what crowd control policies were in place.”

More than 80 people were arrested Wednesday, the vast majority because they violated curfew, long after the main disturbance had ended. Of the many dozens who entered the building, most were able to leave without trouble, though federal officials reportedly are continuing to investigate.

Lawlor, of the University of New Haven, said if much is still uncertain, one thing should be clear. Life will change for Americans, he said, just as it did after the World Trade Center attacks. Lawlor said he expects access to federal, state and municipal buildings will tighten.

“When these restrictions start to unfold, I hope people realize they have no one to thank, other than the MAGA crowd and Donald Trump,” Lawlor said.

Greenwich’s Rincon, on the other hand, said she fears too much will remain the same, despite the shock of what the nation witnessed in its capital this week.

“I think people need to really be their brother’s keeper and protect people in their community, because I’m sure that, just the way hate crimes went up when Obama took office, we can expect that from people who are lashing out ... because they’re not willing to be in a government that’s majority Democratic,” she said.

“The insurrectionists used racist and misogynistic rationalizations to justify their behavior. These are some of the same ideologies promoted by some current and former elected officials, including President Trump, to antagonize and show hatred toward the administration of President Obama,” said Streets, of New Haven’s Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church. “These kinds of narratives will persist and be used to attack the administration of President-Elect Joseph Biden and Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris.”

“I hope the work we’re doing does have some legitimate change,” said Rincon. “But it would be naïve of me to think our children are not going to have to deal with the same thing.”

“Because it was essentially a bunch of white people they didn’t take it seriously.” Will Love, founder of the Danbury Area Justice Network