Experienced and therefore knew exactly what she was getting into without any thought for her family.
This is an hysterically funny picture. Its like an incident from a Carl Hiasson book.
Perhaps it is worth considering that the Capitol building and immediate surrounding area are policed by the DC Capitol Police and NOT by the DC Metropolitan Police. Most of the time the duties of the DCCP relate to ushering tourists around and doing security checks on those people entering the various buildings on Capitol Hill. Clearly the DCCP have little experience of dealing with riotous mobs and have neither the personnel nor the equipment required to do so.
Seemingly there was a failure to foresee the possibility of what happened and to seek preventative assistance from other neighbouring police forces in advance.
One of the problems of policing in the USA is that there are so many different police forces operating in close proximity to each other, and that communication between them seems to be rather poor. I lived for a time just 8 miles from Capitol Hill and counted passing police vehicles from 12 different police forces in a matter of an hour or so one afternoon.
Morning Robert,
Interesting background information. Suppose it will all come out in the wash.
Take care
Andy
See my post in the āTrumpā thread Robert - the former head of the Capitol police doesnāt agree with you:
There seems to be general incredulity that the 2,000 US Capitol police did not prevent the invasion. Their former chief said āI truly had to suspend my disbelief because I didnāt think you could breach the Capitol.ā There is apparently footage of police taking selfies with the mob, and removing barricades in order to allow them in - so it certainly looks as if either spontaneously - because of their personal sympathies - or under orders, some at least of the security services were complicit.
Thereās an article in The Guardian today outlining the long history of US police etc forces handling right-wing protests with kid gloves, but the left extremely aggressively.
The chief has resignedā¦
back peddling furiously?
It was the speech speaking, not Trump. He read it out, one word after another, in a flat tone. He said āI called in the National Guardā but Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller said he ācoordinated with Mike Pence and congressional leaders to activate the National Guardā.
Yes, I spotted that Fleur - unsurprising given his well-known inability to tell truth from lies.
I wonder who put the pressure on him?
He is too delusional to realise that he had gone too far, but he is now trying to appease polar opposites and the Proud Boys et al will not be pleased with their Leader egging them on and then condemning them for the outcome.
Probably the Vice President and the senior cabinet members promising to invoke the 25th Amendment if he didnāt do as they instructed.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall .
I think it is appropriate to consider this in a little more detail.
Of the 2000 Capitol Police there are no doubt at least 10% who are senior officers aged over 50 who are unsuited to riot control because of their age. (One needs to be young and fit to engage in such duty.) So that leaves 1,800 of which it is reasonable to assume that at least another 10% would be on leave or sickness absence, especially during this time of Pandemic.
So that brings us down to 1,620 which, in order to provide 24hr cover, have to be divided into four shifts of 405 officers each.
The Capitol Hill area comprises of a number of large and rambling building complexes of which the Capitol building itself is just one. So it is likely that there were probably no more than 200 officers on duty in the Capitol building at the time of the riotous invasion that outnumbered them at least 10 to 1.
Let us also consider that these officers were not dressed for riot control. In the first instance they had no full face protective helmets, no protective arm and leg shields, no tear gas, no rubber bullets, and no full length defensive shields.
The only thing that they could do was to exercise their primary duty of protecting the elected members of Congress, and the civilian staff by effecting a rear guard action whilst retreating to safe rooms where the civilians could be protected. To my knowledge, no Senator, Congressman or woman, and no staffer, press person, or other civilian was injured.
So in the circumstances I think it can be said that the Capitol police officers on duty at the time did a very good job indeed, despite having to pay for it by having one of their number killed by the mob.
Those officers deserve the highest praise for doing their duty in a way that only resulted in the death of 1 rioter in circumstances which could so easily have turned into a bloodbath.
Criticism should be reserved for the high ranking officers who failed to assess the risks of that day properly, and who failed to arrange for appropriate reinforcements to be on stand-by.
To the officers who were actually there at the time I say āWell doneā.
In what must have been a very frightening situation they achieved their primary objective of protecting the innocent by placing themselves in the front line, despite the risk to life and limb so sadly emphasised by the death of one of their number whilst carrying out their duty.
That does not make them honourable though - they have had his corner on electoral fraud up to now and it has been 100% clear something like this was on the cards.
TBH the whole of the GOP should be removed from office and disbarred from standing again.
Me neither, I just figured they are on a FB / Instagram server as we have those blocked.
That is exactly what hubby and I said when we watched it in the small hours this morning. The whole thing was gripping, we couldnāt turn CNN off!