Do you think it’s possible the police were instructed to do their best not to have a blood bath at the Capitol?

Ummm…they knew well in advance of this demonstration and they allowed this group to enter. There were cops taking selfies. This is consistent with earlier actions taken by right-wing fascists – the cops are on their side.

@JLeslie: “What do you think the real story is?”

I don’t think there is any big secret here. It’s exactly what we continue to see. There is a reason defund movements exist.

Honestly I feel like after 2020, many police are leaning Right more than Left. I also ‘heard’ police were taking selfies with some of the protesters yesterday and being fairly friendly.

Regardless of my personal feelings or theirs, their job was to protect that place and those people, so to me, they failed. Not a good look. Frankly the Guard line I saw looked terrified.

This criticism happens every time there are violent protests. In Portland the police and the mayor were accused of “letting it happen”. It seems to me that police are in a lose-lose situation. If they crack down, they’re violent oppressive fascists. If they take a softer approach, they’re permissive fascist-sympathizers. I agree with @KNOWITALL. They should have allowed a non-violent protest to occur. They should not have allowed the Capitol building to be stormed. In that they failed and I feel that way about ANY protest, no matter what ideological camp it belongs to.

People keep saying that if the protesters had been black/Hispanic, they would’ve been shot or at least prevented from storming the Capitol. I don’t know whether that’s true, but if it is, then we still have no clue what the role of police are in this country. They should not be treating these people differently depending on race/politics.

@Demosthenes: “People keep saying that if the protesters had been black/Hispanic, they would’ve been shot or at least prevented from storming the Capitol. I don’t know whether that’s true, but if it is, then we still have no clue what the role of police are in this country.”

Correct. What is the role of the police? That’s a discussion that has been had for years, and became louder this past summer.

@hello Well, I completely disagreed with the phrase “defund the police” since the minute I heard it. Probably because I majored in marketing. I was glad to see plenty of Black leaders quickly say they would not use that wording either.

@KNOWITALL I saw a selfie shot and in the still photo it’s hard to know exactly what was going on. The cop does not appear to be trying to stop what is happening, but I’m not sure he is posing for the photo. It’s bizarre. I wish we could know everything the FBI is learning. I’m sure the police are being pulled in for questioning.

It’s hard to know, because the Capitol Hill police were quickly augmented by other local law enforcement – D.C. metropolitan, Virginia state, Montgomery Country MD, and various federal police forces. Large groups arrived with their own gear and preparation. It might take a while to learn who was instructed to act in what manner.

Protests are nothing new in D.C.; they happen often, by people all along the political spectrum. Riots are something very different.

@Love_my_doggie My mom was saying that it took over an hour for PG county police to arrive, I’m not sure why she mentioned PG county, except that it would be almost the same amount of time as MoCo. Something is off. Either county the police should be able to get there in less than 20 minutes with sirens on from the closer areas of the counties. I’m just thinking I am going to ask a high school friend, who know is basically a facebook friend, who is a policeman on the VA side, but it will be interesting to hear what he says. He is a Trump voter, but has always been able to have a conversation with opposing views and was very reasonable when George Floyd was killed, spoke out right away about his death as an officer against what happened.

I very much believe they were under orders to leave their guns holstered. I have seen video of the fighting at the barriers and in a tunnel entrance. You expect them to unload a volley at any moment but they never do.

It also could be a tactical choice, seeing how they were outnumbered. They could very well have been lynched.

I don’t fault the cops who were stuck out there. There should have been Guard troops and hundreds more cops backing them up.

I think that the word came down from ‘on high’ to allow this to happen, to make Trump happy. And then it got way out of hand.

Ok, I just checked the profile page of my schoolmate who is a VA cop and he posted that he though the “free speech was great.” Several of his friends commented that they were afraid maybe he had been called to the scene, but he was off yesterday. One of his military buddies (my classmate was in the military before the police force) wrote a long paragraph about how he thinks what happened was terrible no matter what political party.

My same classmate on a different status had shared a photo that said, “and just like that the democrats support the police.” Really fucking disappointing to see all of that on his page. I didn’t make any comments.

Another classmate of mine is married to a cop, and she is very liberal politically. I went to her page, and suddenly in October she stopped posting, which makes me nervous. I am not close friends with her, just see her on facebook from time to time, and she wasn’t popping up in my feed lately.

@elbanditoroso I think that is possible. It’s irresponsible though. Too much risk. Did our congressmen know it was going to happen? Or, just the police? Think about it. It seems insane to me.