The first image that comes to mind when you think of marching on Washington is Martin Luther King Jr. at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. Wednesday’s pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — which led Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call for the president’s immediate removal today, as one Cabinet member resigned — will be an ugly addendum to the history of protest in Washington’s sacred spaces. But that history is much more than MLK. It’s long, complicated and full of surprises. Today’s Daily Dose explores past demonstrations in Washington, as well as what lies ahead for law enforcement agencies that were unprepared for Wednesday’s violence and what we can learn from similar violence overseas.
law enforcement reckoning
1. What Happened?
After Wednesday’s unprecedented security breach, lawmakers vowed to investigate what happened with the U.S. Capitol Police, a force that answers only to Congress and has the primary responsibility of guarding the Capitol. Despite the mass mayhem, Capitol Police made only 14 arrests, while Washington, D.C., police made 52 arrests in all, mostly for curfew violations. More than 50 officers across departments sustained injuries in what Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund called a “violent attack … unlike any I have experienced in my 30 years in law enforcement here in Washington, D.C.”
2. Police Under Scrutiny
The actions — or inactions — of the U.S. Capitol Police were roundly lambasted. “The Capitol Police appeared to me to be woefully unprepared,” said Houston police chief Art Acevedo on a special live episode of The Carlos Watson Show. “I’ve seen some videos of officers just opening barriers and letting people walk through. That is not what we are about in law enforcement.” Fordham University professor and OZY editor-at-large Christina Greer compared the law enforcement approach to what we’ve seen with racial justice protests. “As a Black person, we know that if there were peaceful protesters, they would have either been imprisoned or, God forbid, they had gotten that close to the Capitol, we know they would have been dead,” she said. “This is America. We know this.”
WATCH THE DEBATE ON ‘THE CARLOS WATSON SHOW’
3. Shots Fired
Ashli Babbitt, 35, a pool services business owner in San Diego, was shot dead in the Capitol, her family confirmed. Video showed a Capitol police officer shooting Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, as she tried to climb through a broken window to break into the Speaker’s Lobby outside the House chamber. (Three more people died of “medical emergencies” during the storming, according to D.C. police.) The shooting stood in contrast to the actions of an officer who was seen taking a selfie with an invader, but Babbitt’s death carried resonance for people like pro-Trump Republican strategist Seth Weathers. “I saw the police actively battling and fighting with these people,” Weathers said on a special live edition of The Carlos Watson Show, disputing the idea that pro-Trump protesters were treated differently from BLM protesters. “I saw them shoot a woman who was going onto the Capitol floor. She was white.”
WATCH THE DEBATE ON ‘THE CARLOS WATSON SHOW’
4. What’s Next for Biden’s Inauguration?
President-elect Joe Biden said he is not concerned about security for the inauguration after Wednesday’s breach at the Capitol, but law enforcement agencies will be on even higher alert. They had an intentionally smaller footprint at the Capitol on Wednesday, reportedly as an effort to avoid confrontations like those in Portland, Oregon. But it’s pretty clear that didn’t work, and the discovery of pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails indicate a level of planning that police must prepare for on Jan. 20.
5. A Different Approach to the Public
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson declared on his show Wednesday night that the insurrection will be a pretext for the Biden administration to “silence” the voices of millions of Americans who believe the election was stolen. “What happened today will be used by the people taking power to justify stripping you of the rights you were born with as an American,” he said. Overheated? You bet, but this likely will be a seminal moment in the history of Capitol security. A 1998 shooting of two Capitol police officers was cited as a reason behind building the $600 million Capitol Visitor Center, which more securely funnels tourists through the building.
