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Well, Trump denied requests to send in the national guard multiple times according to reports. Pence later did when Trump didn't, and that's when things got und

Well, Trump denied requests to send in the national guard multiple times according to reports. Pence later did when Trump didn't, and that's when things got under control. This could've been prevented if the president (1) didn't incite this and (2) didn't deny national guard to step-in. So what's left is the capitol police facing a mob invited by the president, without backup. And they stated they had two choices, barricade the capitol and prevent entry, or evacuate the people inside. It could've gotten ugly if the people in the capitol got overrun, e.g. Pelosi facing people that think they're sent by Q to fight off a satanic coup by Pelosi, but they got evacuated to safety. Apparently capitol police chose to evacuate rather than to barricade, in hindsight that's clearly the least risky option to human health. If they break through with nobody inside, that's not as bad if they break through anyway with people inside. A bunch of idiots roaming the capitol building isn't a threat per se, shameful and sad yes, but not one that should've been met with violent force from a small number of capitol police at the expense of (and risk of not) evacuating the people inside.

antris 6y ago
>A bunch of idiots roaming the capitol building isn't a threat per se, shameful and sad yes, but not one that should've been met with violent force from a small number of capitol police at the expense of (and risk of not) evacuating the people inside. Of course, if the mob were leftists or had any significant amount of minorities mixed in, there would have been rivers of blood outside the Capitol.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- leereeves 6y ago
  All evidence to the contrary. We recently saw months of protests by leftists without "rivers of blood", even when the protestors declared autonomous zones, occupied police stations, and burned down, or tried to burn down, thousands of businesses and government buildings. Where's the evidence for your hypothesis? And what's up with downvoting this entirely factual statement in favor of the unsupported theory above?
  - jboog 6y ago
    Literally none of this is in any way comparable to storming the nation's capitol building to overthrow the results of an election.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      I'm not comparing the actions/crimes. I'm comparing the police response. The comment I responded to, which claimed there would "rivers of blood" if leftists tried something like this. Where's the evidence of that? And let's not forget that a protestor was killed by police yesterday.
      - PenguinCoder 6y ago
        Not a protester; A rioter and an insurrectionist.
      - jboog 6y ago
        "protestor" who was storming the capitol to overturn the election while elected officials were sheltering in the building.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Treason trumps public disorder. Obviously. No, now the Republican party is up there with the Communist party or Anarchists, as a danger to America and democracy. Republican mobs paraded racist Confederate flags through federal buildings in a violent attempt to overthrow an election. Thank god for brave Americans who stood up to harrassment and threw out baseless, evidence-free lawsuits trying to overthrow state electors. Hell, even the head of the Republican party has been recorded trying to strong-arm state election officials and fake the reporting of votes. Give it up. The Republican party is clearly more corrupt and anti-American than any other organization you can name.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      What discussion are you responding to? How does your comment relate to whether "if the mob were leftists or had any significant amount of minorities mixed in, there would have been rivers of blood outside the Capitol."?
belorn 6y ago
It seems this is the 17th time that the US uses the military against their own citizens. What is the death count up to now? Can someone explain why the people trained in handling civilians, ie the police in the capital of the united states, is not enough in order to secure a building?
- michaelt 6y ago
  DC police have 3,800 officers [2] which is quite a few considering Washington DC has a population of 705,000 [3] (the national average is 470 people per officer, while DC has just 185 people per officer) and of course only so many of them can be on shift at a time. A large protest can have 100,000-500,000 protesters [1] So even if 95% of protesters are peaceful, a mere 5% inclined towards disorder can easily outnumber the local police. So it's not so crazy they'd need to call backup from somewhere. Why it's so common to deploy the national guard rather than cops from other nearby jurisdictions I don't know. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_in_the_United_States_by_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_in_the_United... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Police_Department_of_the_District_of_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Police_Department... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.
  - vel0city 6y ago
    Washington, D.C. is very much a commuter and tourist town. Its population might be 705k, but the average number of people in the city on a given day is much higher. Tons of people who work in D.C. live in Virginia and Maryland and commute. I don't think I need to really get into why its kind of a major tourist destination. It does not surprise me they have a much higher people per officer than the average town.
    - michaelt 6y ago
      True - what I'm trying to say is: Although DC cops can easily be outnumbered by protesters, in pure numbers DC isn't under-staffed by national standards. Even the most self-sufficient of cities would find their cops outnumbered in such a situation.
prepend 6y ago
> And they stated they had two choices, barricade the capitol and prevent entry, or evacuate the people inside. This seems really strange to me. So the capitol police isn't staffed and doesn’t plan for a situation where they need to do both of these things? What struck me the most is that the rioters seem like just a few hundred/thousand. Definitely scary but should have been able to be controlled by law enforcement. It wasn’t a million people or a zombie horde. Their web site [0] says they have 2,300 officers and staff. So even if only half are officers it seems like 1,150 armed, trained capitol police should be able to control a mob of this size. Certainly rioters trying to stage a coup is a rare event but seems like something that the capitol police should have contingency plans for. Them saying that they had to choose between evacuating lawmakers and protecting the building seems like they need a lot of help planning. [0] https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/uscp-fast-facts https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/uscp-fast-facts
- hef19898 6y ago
  Crowd control is very, very tricky. What would these armed police officers do, in your opinion? Shoot everyone? Arguably not. So what other options do they have? Without riot gear, that very difficult, and even with riot gear, the insurgents were partially armed. So yeah, evacuate and wait for superior numbers to show up was the smarter decision once things already did go south. Now follow it up with aggressive prosecution of those i taking selfies in senator offices would be a good thing, too.
  - prepend 6y ago
    I would expect them to have a plan for crowd control. How do other security organizations handle this? I would expect they do have an armory with riot gear and crowd control equipment. That’s what I mean about odd that they don’t have a plan for this. I live near a top 50 city and the local police has crowd control equipment. Seems like the National capitol police would have some capability for this. Certainly not shooting everyone.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    "Without riot gear, that very difficult" Then there would be the question, of why there was no riot gear, when riots or riot-like situation could be expected. And since this was a planned event - and protestors openly planned to storm it - then maybe there should have been some better preparation? And crowd control is indeed tricky, but it is still standard procedure for police. You have fences. You have lines of strong policemen with shields and tonfa. You have tear gas. Watercannon. Beanbag. Taser. And ultimately, if rioters are indeed shooting or preparing to do so: there are guns with the police, too. Many others brought the point: there probably would have been rivers of blood, if the black life matters movement, would have tried to storm the capitol.
hutzlibu 6y ago
Ok, that is very active from Trump, if the reports are true. And if not, well he still is the military leader. That surely influences forces moral on how to act. But was this not known? The FBI could not bring more people in? But yes, could also very well explained by, "they would not really dare it" preparation.

antris 6y ago

>A bunch of idiots roaming the capitol building isn't a threat per se, shameful and sad yes, but not one that should've been met with violent force from a small number of capitol police at the expense of (and risk of not) evacuating the people inside. Of course, if the mob were leftists or had any significant amount of minorities mixed in, there would have been rivers of blood outside the Capitol.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
leereeves 6y ago
All evidence to the contrary. We recently saw months of protests by leftists without "rivers of blood", even when the protestors declared autonomous zones, occupied police stations, and burned down, or tried to burn down, thousands of businesses and government buildings. Where's the evidence for your hypothesis? And what's up with downvoting this entirely factual statement in favor of the unsupported theory above?
- jboog 6y ago
  Literally none of this is in any way comparable to storming the nation's capitol building to overthrow the results of an election.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    I'm not comparing the actions/crimes. I'm comparing the police response. The comment I responded to, which claimed there would "rivers of blood" if leftists tried something like this. Where's the evidence of that? And let's not forget that a protestor was killed by police yesterday.
    - PenguinCoder 6y ago
      Not a protester; A rioter and an insurrectionist.
    - jboog 6y ago
      "protestor" who was storming the capitol to overturn the election while elected officials were sheltering in the building.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Treason trumps public disorder. Obviously. No, now the Republican party is up there with the Communist party or Anarchists, as a danger to America and democracy. Republican mobs paraded racist Confederate flags through federal buildings in a violent attempt to overthrow an election. Thank god for brave Americans who stood up to harrassment and threw out baseless, evidence-free lawsuits trying to overthrow state electors. Hell, even the head of the Republican party has been recorded trying to strong-arm state election officials and fake the reporting of votes. Give it up. The Republican party is clearly more corrupt and anti-American than any other organization you can name.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    What discussion are you responding to? How does your comment relate to whether "if the mob were leftists or had any significant amount of minorities mixed in, there would have been rivers of blood outside the Capitol."?

belorn 6y ago

It seems this is the 17th time that the US uses the military against their own citizens. What is the death count up to now? Can someone explain why the people trained in handling civilians, ie the police in the capital of the united states, is not enough in order to secure a building?

michaelt 6y ago
DC police have 3,800 officers [2] which is quite a few considering Washington DC has a population of 705,000 [3] (the national average is 470 people per officer, while DC has just 185 people per officer) and of course only so many of them can be on shift at a time. A large protest can have 100,000-500,000 protesters [1] So even if 95% of protesters are peaceful, a mere 5% inclined towards disorder can easily outnumber the local police. So it's not so crazy they'd need to call backup from somewhere. Why it's so common to deploy the national guard rather than cops from other nearby jurisdictions I don't know. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_in_the_United_States_by_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_in_the_United... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Police_Department_of_the_District_of_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Police_Department... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.
- vel0city 6y ago
  Washington, D.C. is very much a commuter and tourist town. Its population might be 705k, but the average number of people in the city on a given day is much higher. Tons of people who work in D.C. live in Virginia and Maryland and commute. I don't think I need to really get into why its kind of a major tourist destination. It does not surprise me they have a much higher people per officer than the average town.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    True - what I'm trying to say is: Although DC cops can easily be outnumbered by protesters, in pure numbers DC isn't under-staffed by national standards. Even the most self-sufficient of cities would find their cops outnumbered in such a situation.

prepend 6y ago

> And they stated they had two choices, barricade the capitol and prevent entry, or evacuate the people inside. This seems really strange to me. So the capitol police isn't staffed and doesn’t plan for a situation where they need to do both of these things? What struck me the most is that the rioters seem like just a few hundred/thousand. Definitely scary but should have been able to be controlled by law enforcement. It wasn’t a million people or a zombie horde. Their web site [0] says they have 2,300 officers and staff. So even if only half are officers it seems like 1,150 armed, trained capitol police should be able to control a mob of this size. Certainly rioters trying to stage a coup is a rare event but seems like something that the capitol police should have contingency plans for. Them saying that they had to choose between evacuating lawmakers and protecting the building seems like they need a lot of help planning. [0] https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/uscp-fast-facts https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/uscp-fast-facts

hef19898 6y ago
Crowd control is very, very tricky. What would these armed police officers do, in your opinion? Shoot everyone? Arguably not. So what other options do they have? Without riot gear, that very difficult, and even with riot gear, the insurgents were partially armed. So yeah, evacuate and wait for superior numbers to show up was the smarter decision once things already did go south. Now follow it up with aggressive prosecution of those i taking selfies in senator offices would be a good thing, too.
- prepend 6y ago
  I would expect them to have a plan for crowd control. How do other security organizations handle this? I would expect they do have an armory with riot gear and crowd control equipment. That’s what I mean about odd that they don’t have a plan for this. I live near a top 50 city and the local police has crowd control equipment. Seems like the National capitol police would have some capability for this. Certainly not shooting everyone.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  "Without riot gear, that very difficult" Then there would be the question, of why there was no riot gear, when riots or riot-like situation could be expected. And since this was a planned event - and protestors openly planned to storm it - then maybe there should have been some better preparation? And crowd control is indeed tricky, but it is still standard procedure for police. You have fences. You have lines of strong policemen with shields and tonfa. You have tear gas. Watercannon. Beanbag. Taser. And ultimately, if rioters are indeed shooting or preparing to do so: there are guns with the police, too. Many others brought the point: there probably would have been rivers of blood, if the black life matters movement, would have tried to storm the capitol.

hutzlibu 6y ago

Ok, that is very active from Trump, if the reports are true. And if not, well he still is the military leader. That surely influences forces moral on how to act. But was this not known? The FBI could not bring more people in? But yes, could also very well explained by, "they would not really dare it" preparation.