In D.C. and at home, Stamford reacts to breach of U.S. Capitol
More than seven miles away from the U.S. Capitol, Stamford native Laura Gerson suddenly heard sirens everywhere Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s really crazy, and I’ve had so many people checking in on me, even up here. It’s been nonstop sirens,” Gerson, 23, said as the situation continued to escalate downtown.
Gerson lives in Van Ness, a neighborhood closer to the Maryland suburbs than the heart of D.C. Her mom and her brother, who still lives in Stamford, were the first to reach out as a pro-Trump protest turned violent and a mob of angry Trump supporters descended on the Capitol, eventually breaching the building and reaching the Senate floor.
“I’m pretty sure every (Metropolitan Police Department) officer in D.C. has been mobilized at this point,” she said.
Gerson’s street was empty, but she said her stomach was still in knots for the city she has lived in since 2015.
“I feel extremely anxious. I’m
feeling really shocked and horrified, because I really love D.C.” Gerson said. “This city really feels like my home now after living in Stanford my whole life, essentially. So, to see this happen to a city that I really love is really distressing.”
Gerson left lower Fairfield County to attend American University. Between attending one of the most politically active schools in the country and continuing to live in the nation’s capital, she’s no stranger to marches and rallies.
“I was part of the protests this summer that … ended up facing some real hostility at the hands of Metro Police,” she said. “One of my friends was arrested and I was actually forced into a house overnight that I had to shelter in until morning … until the curfew was lifted because of threats from Metro Police.”
Gerson contrasted her experience being crammed inside of a basement apartment with more than a dozen other protesters with what happened on the Hill on Wednesday.
“These guys were able to walk onto the Senate floor past four layers of fences and security,” she continued. “I think that really says something about the priorities of the Metro Police.”
When Gerson moved to the capital five years back, she said she felt connected to the nation and infatuated by the late Obama administration. Those feelings have dwindled over the past four years, she said, but the breach of the Capitol building marked a new low.
“Trying to explain something like this, or anything that’s happened with the election or the protests to the 18-year-old I was when I moved here in 2015 — It’s just kind of unimaginable,” said Gerson. “I honestly don’t know if I had heard about all this, if I still would have wanted to live here as much as I wanted to.”
Back in her native city, Mayor David Martin also decried the violence Wednesday.
“The events in our nation’s capitol are the result of our president and others turning honest debate into extreme populism based upon alternative facts and lies,” Martin said in a statement. “Vocal extremists are trying to drown out the truth. This is a tragedy for America to see our Democracy undermined today.”
The invasion of the Capitol by the supporters of Trump came hours into a joint session of Congress as the members were working to ratify President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College over Trump, 306-232.
Hundreds of miles away, in Stamford’s Mill River Park, people walked their dogs while Trump supporters carried Confederate flags into the halls of Congress.
“I only heard a little while driving home from work,” said one woman while playing fetch with her dog. A number of other people also remained unaware of the scene unfolding in the capital after Trump encouraged protesters at a rally he held to “walk down” to the Capitol where members of Congress were ratifying the vote.
Stamford resident Isabel Reina — upon hearing about the breach of the U.S. Capitol — connected the happenings in Washington to Trump’s claims that Biden did not win the November 2020 election fairly.
“He cannot keep lying,” Reina said in Spanish. “He needs to hand over the presidency to immediately.”
Just across the park, Alicia Yoder only had two words to describe the riots: “absolute insanity.”
“I never thought I would see something happening like this in the United States,” said Yoder, a Harrisburg, Pa. resident visiting her sister in Stamford. “It’s horrifying and heartbreaking that it devolved to this.”
Yoder said the incoming administration would have to summon great courage to move forward from the violence seen on Wednesday.
“It’s going to take a lot of people that are willing to see the issue and address the root of it,” Yoder said. “This is a tough job.”
As the violence escalated in Washington, Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo, a Republican, called the peaceful transition of power one of the nation’s most honored traditions.
“What is transpiring today in our nation’s Capitol is disgraceful and against everything good that this nation has stood for more than 244 years,” Camillo said in a statement released on Town of Greenwich letterhead.
“This degradation of democracy needs to end now,” continued Camillo, who has also served in the state House of Representatives. “The world is watching, and history is recording the actions of those in charge, and especially of those who remain silent. No nation can claim to be the world’s leading democracy when it can’t secure its own Capitol.
“We are better than this. We are a nation of laws. We are a country that has led by example. We are Americans. We must return to the moral compass of respect and bipartisanship that have made this country the global leader it is.”
Joanna Swomley, a cofounder of Indivisible Greenwich and a longtime Trump critic, said the afternoon’s events “are in furthering of an attempted coup and are seditious.”
“A sitting president has orchestrated a siege of the capital,” Swomley said. “Law enforcement must reclaim control and arrest those who have violently broken the law. We must ensure that Congress is able to do its job and that Joe Biden is installed as the next president. That said, at this time everyone should remain home as taking to the streets will only worsen the situation.”
Swomley also noted what she called the “incredible irony” that if the protest had been a Black Lives Matter demonstration or from people supporting policy from the left, people could “all imagine how differently this would have been handled.”
As the chaos continued late Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Greenwich resident, also issued a statement.
“My staff and I are safe at a secure location,” said Blumenthal, D-Conn. “I am absolutely sickened by scenes of anarchist mobs violently swarming the Capitol. It’s not a protest — it’s armed insurrection. This is an assault on the heart of our democracy incited and fueled by the president of the United States and his enablers.
“Make no mistake: Congress will do its job. This election will still be certified, and President-elect Biden and Vice Presidentelect Harris will be sworn in on January 20.”
Caroline Treschitta, a 23-year-old Ridgefield native who moved to the Park View neighborhood northwest D.C. five years ago, said she and her roommate began watching the news just before noon Wednesday, as officials began certifying presidential election results.
A few hours later, they stopped working and focused the violent events as they unfolded.
“My reaction generally is just a lot of anger — at the violent double standard with the policing — just thinking about how violent the police were toward Black Lives Matter protesters over the summer, particularly to Black and brown protesters — and now to see nothing be done when it’s white rioters storming the Capitol,” said Treschitta, who lives lives about two miles from the Capitol building.
During the summer, Treschitta attended Black Lives Matter protests. She said she felt police would have been more aggressive Wednesday in D.C. if protesters were mostly Black and brown and were protesting racial inequality.
“There was so much call for law and order, and now I’m wondering where that same call is,” she said.
“The way that these Trump supporters were treated by the police is a direct result of their white privilege, and it’s angering. .... “It’s definitely kind of a scary mood here in D.C. — and a little stressful.”