There was no way they couldn’t see this coming. As early as mid-December, with tensions high as he ramped up his baseless and un-democratic challenge to the presidential election results, Donald Trump was urging his supporters to converge on Washington for what he promised would be a “wild” demonstration against the certification of Joe Biden’s win. How, given how obvious the threat was and all the warnings they received, could law enforcement have wound up being so woefully ill-prepared and ineffectual as that protest became a violent revolt and pro-Trump insurgents took the Capitol by force?
The dominoes have already begun to fall. Steven Sund, chief of the Capitol Police, tendered his resignation following bipartisan pressure to do so—including from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said Thursday that House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving would also be stepping down. Michael Stenger, the Senate sergeant at arms, is being sacked as well, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced. (Stenger, according to Senator Joe Manchin, apparently received an upbraiding before his firing from a “berserk” Senator Lindsey Graham, and was “absolutely pathetic” in trying to explain himself.)
But that’s likely to be just the tip of the iceberg after a colossal failure of policing that resulted in the first breach of the Capitol since 1812 and the loss of at least five lives, including a Capitol officer—the subject now of a planned federal murder investigation. What happened in Washington on Wednesday was a stunning, unprecedented attack on American democracy orchestrated by the president himself. But it also constituted an epic failure on the part of Capitol Police, from its leadership that bungled the riot to some individual officers, at least one of whom was seen apparently posing for a selfie with the violent pro-Trump mob.
“It was so disheartening,” R. Gil Kerlikowske, former Seattle and Buffalo chief of police and former Customs and Border Protection commissioner, told Politico. “I’m still pretty shocked.”
Capitol Police had only prepared for a peaceful protest despite the fact that pro-Trump extremists had been openly planning for a far more destructive event for weeks, as Buzzfeed News reported Wednesday. The force lacked strategy, contingency plans, and reinforcements to defend lawmakers. Leaders rejected offers to help, including from the FBI and Pentagon before the attack, according to the Associated Press. Those two departments are also likely to face increasing pressure over their responses. The Defense Department reportedly hamstrung the National Guard and was maddeningly slow to accept an offer from Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to send in reinforcements from his state. Meanwhile, the FBI brushed aside warnings from Senator Mark Warner ahead of the attack, assuring him they were prepared.
“They were flat wrong,” Warner told reporters Thursday. “Yesterday was an embarrassment to their response.”
Then there were the on-the-ground failures, which were a damning indictment of racial inequalities in law enforcement. Police led often brutal crackdowns on Black Lives Matter demonstrations all last summer, including in the nation’s capital, where in June Trump had peaceful protesters gassed outside the White House in service of a deranged photo op. But Trump said his armed white supporters who violently stormed Capitol Hill were “very special,” and those charged with protecting Congress did little to stop them—something that never would have been the case had the insurrectionists been people of color. Indeed, even as the MAGA mob violently clashed with the blue they supposedly back, leaving several officers injured and one, Brian Sicknick, dead, much of the law enforcement on the scene Wednesday treated rioters with kids’ gloves—and in some cases may have actively helped them. One of the pro-Trump rioters told the New York Times that, after forcing their way into the Capitol, they wanted to ransack Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office, but could not find it—so they got directions from a Capitol Police officer.
We’ll surely learn more about the across-the-board failures through congressional hearings and investigations. But just based on what we know, it’s something of a miracle that this nightmare wasn’t even more catastrophic. Pipe bombs were found at the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee offices. One insurrectionist, who was arrested and charged, was caught with 11 molotov cocktails “ready to go” at the Capitol. Others were caught with flex-cuffs, suggesting they may have planned on taking hostages. Reuters’ Jim Bourg recounted hearing “at least 3 different rioters at the Capitol say that they hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor.” What law enforcement allowed to transpire in D.C. this week is appalling. Imagine how much worse it could’ve been.
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