…they seemed fueled by methamphetamines. That’s what one of the cops said about the insurrectionists in this piece by Pro Publica:
The riot squad defending the embattled entrance to the west side of the U.S. Capitol was surrounded by violence. Rioters had clambered up the scaffolding by the stage erected for the inauguration of President Joseph Biden. They hurled everything they could get their hands on at the cops beneath: rebar, plywood, power tools, even cans of food they had frozen for extra damage.
In front of the cops, a mob was mounting a frontal assault. Its members hit officers with fists and baseball bats. They grabbed at weapons slung from the officers’ waists. They unleashed a barrage of M-80 firecrackers. Soaked in never-ending streams of bright orange bear spray, the officers choked on plumes of acrid smoke that singed their nostrils and obscured their vision.
One officer in the middle of the scrum, a combat veteran, thought the rioters were so vicious, so relentless, that they seemed fueled by methamphetamine. To his left, he watched a chunk of steel strike a fellow officer above the eye, setting off a geyser of blood. A pepper ball tore through the air over his shoulder and exploded against the jaw of a man in front of him. The round, filled with chemical irritant, ripped the rioter’s face open. His teeth were now visible through a hole in his cheek. Blood poured out, puddling on the pavement surrounding the building. But the man kept coming.
The combat veteran was hit with bear spray eight times. His experience overseas “was nothing like this,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
Over the last several weeks, ProPublica has interviewed 19 current and former U.S. Capitol Police officers about the assault on the Capitol. Following on the dramatic video of officers defending the building that House lawmakers showed during the first day of the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, the interviews provide the most detailed account to date of a most extraordinary battle.
The enemies on Jan. 6 were Americans: thousands of people from across the country who had descended on the Capitol, intent on stopping Congress from certifying an election they believed was stolen from Trump. They had been urged to attend by Trump himself, with extremist right-wing and militia leaders calling for violence.
Many of the officers were speaking to reporters for the first time about the day’s events, almost all anonymously for fear of retribution. That they spoke at all is an indication of the depth of their frustration over the botched response. ProPublica also obtained confidential intelligence bulletins and previously unreported planning documents.
Combined, the information makes clear how failures of leadership, communication and tactics put the lives of hundreds of officers at risk and allowed rioters to come dangerously close to realizing their threats against members of Congress.
Lindsey Graham seems to think this is all Nancy Pelosi’s fault and he wants to know what she knew and when she knew it. Apparently, he wants her to pay for Trump’s rabid mob assaulting the Capitol and trying to kill her.
I guess he figures she was asking for it. Go figure.
He thinks he’s being oh-so-clever by throwing it back on her and suggesting that she should have told the Capitol police to shoot on sight or something, but nobody’s buying it. After all, his Daddy Donald told them all how much he loved them and that they were very special.
It’s possible that the authorities across the board were over-correcting from the over-reaction in June during the George Floyd protests. Failing to take a group of violent insurrectionists seriously is a big mistake and they have to get to the bottom of it. But I have my doubts that Pelosi told law enforcement to stand down from Donald Trump’s MAGA mob doesn’t track for me.
Read the whole harrowing story. I keep hearing rumblings from various quarters that it was just a bunch of tourists who got a little out of hand and took some souvenirs but it really wasn’t. Not by a long shot. It is a miracle that more people weren’t killed.