Why was there such a safety failure at the Capital? What happened?

Rainy Day wrote:

I think the huge number of people played a part.

I think cops are more hesitant than ever to shoot unarmed civilians. Can you imagine if they just unloaded on the first 25-30 people before they got in the building? It would have deterred the rest of the mob but would have been called a bloody massacre of unarmed people.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

A reporter early in the melee said that Capitol police were told not to shoot unless threatened because any property damage could be fixed. Shooting unarmed people is generally speaking a bad thing---not saying it might not be justified just that you better make a really, really good case for doing it.

I agree that there needs to be a deep and wide ranging investigation into Capitol police and DC police actions.

The DC police do not have jurisdiction (and USCP may overlap with DC) but I heard (on NPR) that the DC Mayor did not want a highly visible armed force on the street in the city. She wanted (prior to the melee) national guard units to be unarmed and handling traffic. Maybe this is a misreport.

It seems by many accounts that posts on social media should have tipped off LEO to be on heightened alert and bring in assistance well before hand.

And yes there is quite the contrast between this and other protests and marches. I do not recall a single BLM protestor trying to access the Capitol illegally much less in an attempt to thwart the work of Congress.

there have to be reasons wrote:

george co wrote:

Hopefully if this is correct they get theirs, but even this scenario seems like it will be hard to prove beyond a doubt.

This makes prosecution much more difficult. What the hell were they doing? Even I would lock the door.

I do not see how it makes it difficult. Just needs to be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt".

I thought Blue Lives mattered? wrote:

Lock the doors, then the Nat Guard In gas masks sweeps from the outside with tear gas and batons.

Pretty simple really. Law and order

Except the national guard was not called out until after everything was under way and even then it took some arm twisting.

I would push back that the folks actually protesting are not a problem. It is when they turn into rioters that it becomes a problem or when rioters use them as cover.

I suspect quite a few people who showed up quickly left when things got bad. Now I think their reason for protesting is pretty stupid this time. Not so with BLM or pro-lifers or the myriad of other protestors who do their thing peacefully.

As far as no one suspecting, there seems to be enough reports of posts on social media that someone should have said "You know this could get out of hand, maybe we should bring in reinforcements".

stan the corgi wrote:

I hate these coulda, shoulda, woulda posts. Like, how did 911 happen? Well, sometimes you can't anticipate everything.

Well, from reports I am seeing there was plenty of smoke on social media. Unlike 911 it was not disjointed bits here and there that were never connected (in part because of laws that kept the CIA and FBI from talking to one another).

The Gallant Pig Man wrote:

stan the corgi wrote:

I hate these coulda, shoulda, woulda posts. Like, how did 911 happen? Well, sometimes you can't anticipate everything.

Uhh, we DID anticipate 9/11 and the those at the top failed to respond. There is a drumbeat of security professionals at home and from around the world saying there is NO WAY that this security failure happened on accident. There was complicity and deliberate sabotage at high levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_before_the_attacks

Let's see for 9-11 we had no date, no location, just a lot of "they are planning something big". Here we had a date, time and location and even people openly saying they were going to be there.

A LOT more evidence to lead to someone to say "Let's beef up security".

Luv2Run wrote:

The Gallant Pig Man wrote:

Uhh, we DID anticipate 9/11 and the those at the top failed to respond. There is a drumbeat of security professionals at home and from around the world saying there is NO WAY that this security failure happened on accident. There was complicity and deliberate sabotage at high levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_before_the_attacks

Let's see for 9-11 we had no date, no location, just a lot of "they are planning something big". Here we had a date, time and location and even people openly saying they were going to be there.

A LOT more evidence to lead to someone to say "Let's beef up security".

PS, the wikipedia post shows we had information an attack was "imminent" in April 2001. What is "imminent"? Next week? 6 months?

Also, what does "large scale" mean? Are they going to try to hit a nuclear power plant? There was nothing that said hijackers were going to seize planes and fly them into buildings (or attempt to). There was no date. No names.

The bits and pieces that came out later are easy to connect when you have the final picture. Sometime try to put together a 500 piece puzzle with no picture of the final product and also no idea if pieces are missing.

Luv2Run wrote:

but I heard (on NPR) that the DC Mayor did not want a highly visible armed force on the street in the city. She wanted (prior to the melee) national guard units to be unarmed and handling traffic. Maybe this is a misreport.

I heard the same thing. They also were told not to wear their OCP pattern (camouflage) pattern tactical vests and wore black ones instead because they did not want it to look like we had the military in the streets. It sends a bad essage.

*message

Ok I looked it up. What was the disposition? From my quick read (not a lawyer) it looks like some groups wanted to be present for the ballot counting. I am thinking maybe the GOP already had their designated monitors in there and these folks wanted to be there in addition.

Just because you are a member of the GOP or some organization does not give one access to counting ballots.

Election integrity does not need to be discussed further because in 50 something cases Trump or his toadies brought there was NO evidence of actual fraud. Some errors were made, but they were few. In GA, the four top positions in the election (Gov, LT gov, SoS and whatever job Gabriel Sterling has) are all Republicans who voted for Trump! (The gov and lt gov really have nothing to do with the election process). The state legislature is GOP controlled and did nothing because everything ran pretty darn well!

Whether planned or unplanned there was a massive security failure. Very likely some at the command level were complicit. There will be a very thorough investigation by DOJ, Congress, DHS on this and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs, and there might be a fair number of criminal accounts (i.e., indictments). I figured Jan. 6 would be a mess, but on the streets with a bunch of histrionics in the Capitol chambers. Did not think that the mob would actually breach the doors and take over the place for several hours. And they did it very easily.

Not sure how a law is going to prevent lies or conspiracy theories.

9/11 "allowed" to happen. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Our oil interests? That is a great one since the US is now the largest exporter of oil in the world. Also, I did not see any sweetheart deals. If "big oil" is as powerful as you think, the easiest thing to do would have been to get Bush to roll back sanctions on Iraq and let the oil flow more freely. The invasion reduced their oil producing capacity. Wells were set on fire.

The PATRIOT ACT has some really dicey components, but I think you have been reading QAnon too much if you think there were people out there saying "Yeah, let's let these guys kill 3000 Americans so we can collect metadata on Americans". If they are as nefarious as you say, they could collect that stuff. Plus I bet ATT and Apple know more about me than government does.

johnny99 wrote:

there have to be reasons wrote:

How stupid can the anarchists be. If ever it would be good to wear a mask, its when you are getting your picture taken while breaking the law!

That's the first thing you learn in anarchy school!

Real anarchist:

https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-man-ultra-radical-anarchist-260nw-1537436105.jpg

Trump anarchist:

https://media.11alive.com/assets/KTHV/images/9f81075c-19cd-47b0-89d7-723b83c24ce0/9f81075c-19cd-47b0-89d7-723b83c24ce0_1920x1080.jpg

And that guy has been charged.

Luv2Run wrote:

johnny99 wrote:

That's the first thing you learn in anarchy school!

Real anarchist:

https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-man-ultra-radical-anarchist-260nw-1537436105.jpg

Trump anarchist:

https://media.11alive.com/assets/KTHV/images/9f81075c-19cd-47b0-89d7-723b83c24ce0/9f81075c-19cd-47b0-89d7-723b83c24ce0_1920x1080.jpg

And that guy has been charged.

PS: I am betting his defense will be that he is sovereign and that the tassel on the flag means it the laws do not apply to him (or whatever that bullcrap is).

Luv2Run wrote:

there have to be reasons wrote:

This makes prosecution much more difficult. What the hell were they doing? Even I would lock the door.

I do not see how it makes it difficult. Just needs to be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt".

Really? So if you are charged with trespassing in my home and a video exists of me opening the door, inviting & waving you in, and conversing and taking selfies with you, you don't think that creates a reasonable doubt?

Luv2Run wrote:

stan the corgi wrote:

I hate these coulda, shoulda, woulda posts. Like, how did 911 happen? Well, sometimes you can't anticipate everything.

Well, from reports I am seeing there was plenty of smoke on social media. Unlike 911 it was not disjointed bits here and there that were never connected (in part because of laws that kept the CIA and FBI from talking to one another).

This was the headline on an article in my local paper on Wednesday (before the s*it hit the fan):

Trump Backers: Bring Guns to D.C.

I can't find the article online, but the first sentence is "[f]ar right online forums are seething with references to potential violence and urging supporters of President Trump to bring guns to Wednesday's protests in Washington ..."

An online post about carrying a gun in DC, where that is illegal, is quoted: "Yes, it's illegal, but this is war and we're clearly in a post-legal phase of our society."

In response to Trump's tweet "Be there - will be wild!", an online poster wrote "We've got marching orders."

There's no doubt that the potential for some violence was well known before Wednesday.

george co wrote:

Really? So if you are charged with trespassing in my home and a video exists of me opening the door, inviting & waving you in, and conversing and taking selfies with you, you don't think that creates a reasonable doubt?

Look at the videos of these people forcing their way past capital police, breaking past barricades, breaking down doors, breaking open windows, scaling walls, etc. Listen to the words they are saying and posting on social media. Between the thousands of hours of video and the numerous self-incriminating posts, the prosecutors' jobs should be easy.

Everyone in that crowd knew perfectly well that they were breaking the law by being inside the locked and barricaded capital grounds/building. It takes willful ignorance of the facts on the ground to think that crowd control measures, taken after the breach, provide a defense against the crime of trespass.

Considering the severity of the potential punishments, I think you will see a lot of pleas. Unless Trump figures out a way to sell off some pardons to Jethro and the gang.