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.

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.

In Austin, 16-year-old Edwin Ayala attended a protest. He stood alone on a grassy hill, about a dozen yards away from police and other protestors. As Ayala stood still, an officer on the street raised his gun and shot a bean-bag bullet at the boy's head. Ayala collapsed instantly.

I'm not disputing whether American police are violent; we have another example from yesterday: an unarmed woman killed by police.

I'm disputing the claim that the response would have been more aggressive at a leftist protest. Thousands of National Guard troops, in addition to police in riot gear, were dispersed to clear the Capitol. They did so. Less violence was required to do so, because the protestors complied.

Were it a left wing protest, the National Guard would not have been delayed by the federal executive until after the insurrectionists had spent their energy and either failed to achieve their violent goals because the targets had escaped immediate threat, and would hace acted violently to disperse the crowd earlier, and the right-wing counter-protestors that would have been present (left-wing counter-protestors were specifically told to avoid this event by major left-leaning groups because of the risk of violence) would have been permitted by law enforcement to freely act violently against the same group targeted by LE. We know all that, because we've seen it time and again over the last year, across the US, including specifically in D.C.

If it were a left wing or minority advocate protest, the response would have been the same as with BLM protests:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/police-response-black-...

The double standard is striking.

19 dead in 2 weeks, without any aggression even close to what happened yesterday. It's obvious that the death toll would be higher if BLM protestors were as aggressive as the Trump protestors yesterday.

I was. Most of the victims during the protests were black. You cherry picked quotes from the article to support your views.

The reality is that a peaceful BLM protest was dispersed with greater violence so that the president can pose across the street with a bible, than a mob attacking and storming the Capitol.

Makes me chuckle that the result of this + the deplatforming of most of the opposition will only result in even more extremism and separation in the US.

I guess you reap what you sow

The level of violence at blm protests were a lot higher for a lot longer in a lot more places. The age groups were opposite. The weapons usage by protestors were much higher and the trepassing on private property didn't exist here. Besides by nightfall the protest was done blm protests turned violent at night.

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.

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.

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."?

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

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.

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.

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?

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... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Police_Department... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.

Even the most self-sufficient of cities would find their cops outnumbered in such a situation.

"Nope, can't do that, not enough timeslices on mutex semaphore of a monadic type for me to transpile that functionality of changing the color of the background"

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.

He can certainly influece it, but did he? If not, who is responsible for the lack of defensive preparations, the local police? The FBI?

DC is not a state, it’s a district under federal control. There is a mayor and a police department, but responsibilities that would normally fall to a state-level government are handled federally.

This is a contentious issue in the US right now, because it means that the residents do not have representation in the house and senate.

Further, the insurrectionists were definitely armed, at least five guns were seized from among those arrested.

https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/13-arrested-5-weapons-reco...

From Merriam-Webster

Armed protestors invaded the Capitol intent on disrupting the government from certifying an election. This was quite literally an insurrection.

In the case of Washington, DC they are not. The mayor has a normal municipal police force and the president has control over the equivalent of the state-level force, which would usually be called for such an incident. The Capitol specifically also has another force, independent from the municipal police, which is federally controlled.

There are numerous reports Trump explicitly refused to allow the National Guard to respond; governors of two adjacent states mobilized their state forces instead, and eventually Pence also mobilized the DC guard, which it's not really clear he had the authority to do (or if he does, also the authority to issue orders contravening Trump's refusal).