The assault on the Capitol: Why weren’t officials prepared?
The “deadly siege” of the U.S. Capitol last week was an astonishing security failure, said Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper in The New York Times. With frightening ease, about 8,000 rioters needed just 15 minutes to overwhelm 1,400 Capitol Police officers and breach one of the most fortified buildings in the world. A “dizzying list” of blunders allowed this disaster, starting with federal officials downplaying online plots to storm the Capitol, despite soon-to-be rioters posting “photographs of guns and ammunition that they planned to bring” on Facebook. While some insurrectionists broke in by scaling exterior walls and shattering windows, hundreds waltzed through doors as police stood by; only 14 people were arrested during the siege itself. The five-person death toll could have been far worse: Rioters allegedly brought guns, pipe bombs, napalm-like explosives, and Molotov cocktails to Washington and filled online forums with plans to assassinate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence. “Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in,” said one online thread picked up by the FBI. “Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die.” After so many threats of violence and bloodshed, how was there “no coordinated plan to defend against an attack on the Capitol”?
Maybe the timid police response “was influenced by the antipolice sentiment of the last year,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. During the Black Lives Matter protests, Democratic leaders “were slow to condemn” looting, rioting, and attacks on police, creating a “culture of impunity.” It’s “tragic but predictable that far-right activists would take up the same destructive tactics.” That’s nonsense, said Anna North in Vox.com. The colossal failure to protect the Capitol stems from “the inability of law enforcement officials to see Trump supporters—a group of mostly white Americans, some of them law enforcement officers themselves—as a real threat.” You’ll never see a more graphic demonstration of what white privilege means. While trespassing and trashing the Capitol, attacking cops, and hunting senators and congressmen on live TV, the MAGA thugs and terrorists laughed, celebrated, and took selfies. The police acted with great restraint as their colleagues were punched, sprayed with mace, beaten with an American flagpole, and in the case of Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, fatally struck in the head with a fire extinguisher. Indeed, several Capitol cops appeared happy to see the terrorists, including one officer who allegedly posed for a selfie with a rioter and another accused of donning a “Make America Great Again” cap. Several have been suspended, and more than a dozen are under investigation for inappropriate behavior during the insurrection.
Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned after the fiasco, says most of his outnumbered officers performed “valiantly” and should have had more backup, said Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis in The Washington Post. Sund says he made six requests for National Guard support, beginning two days before the riot, but was “rebuffed” each time. As rioters stormed the Capitol, Sund says, he pleaded for support, but Army Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt replied that he didn’t “like the visual” of uniformed soldiers guarding the Capitol. While watching his supporters rioting on TV, Trump reportedly refused numerous requests by aides to send in the National Guard. After agonizing hours of inaction, Pence—whose own life was in danger as he hid from the rioters with senators and congressmen—finally intervened and gave the order to summon troops.
An even worse disaster was narrowly averted, Molly Olmstead in Slate.com. Some rioters were openly “out for blood.” There were shouts of “Hang Mike Pence!” and “Where’s Nancy?” Some dressed in paramilitary garb carried plastic zip ties, apparently intending to take members of Congress hostage. Many, including Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran fatally shot as she tried to break into the Capitol through a window, were ardent followers of QAnon, the conspiracy theory that prophesies an event called “The Storm,” when Trump will capture and execute his political opponents. An Alabama man allegedly parked a truck two blocks from the Capitol with 11 homemade bombs and two guns inside.
Although the rioters failed to stop Congress’ certification of
Biden’s victory, said Greg Sargent in WashingtonPost.com, rightwing extremists are hailing it as “a huge and momentous success.” They managed to storm the seat of U.S. democracy and force terrorized members of Congress to flee the chamber and delay their vote. Trump’s presidency will soon be over, but the Capitol siege was “a propaganda coup” that could energize far-right extremists “for a long time to come.”