The Capitol Police

 There's obviously a ton that I could write about concerning yesterday's putsch attempt, but I wanted to pushback on some of the online speculation about the Capitol Police. There are a few images of Capitol police abandoning barricades, one in particular has gotten a lot of mileage on social media. There is a lot more footage that will come out, and I recommend starting with this intrepid report from ITV. 

There very well could have been some complicity on the part of a few Capitol police officers. We certainly know that police lean authoritarian in their politics. But watching several clips of footage, it's clear that what happened was that they were overwhelmed. The Capitol police are not "real" police, in the sense of having riot control training. They basically patrol the Capitol grounds, usher visitors around and protect the Members of Congress. They are responsible not only for the massive Capitol building, but also the office buildings - huge bureaucratic buildings with hundreds of offices. They had about 2000 officers to cover the Capitol, the Russell, Dirksen, Hart, Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn buildings. 

It looks like as many as 10,000 Trumpist brown shirts flooded the Capitol grounds. At some point, a decision was made not to use live ammunition. Many people have commented that if these protestors were Black or Brown, the outcome would have been a bloodbath. I certainly hope we never have to test that hypothesis. We do know that one Trumpist, QAnon supporter was shot and killed by Capitol police. In the nationwide protests immediately following George Floyd's death, 19 people died. Four people died yesterday, though three died of "medical reasons" that are currently obscure. There is video or Capitol police shoving and punching the insurrectionists. 

There should very much be a reckoning. The problem, though, seems to me to be primarily one of a failure of imagination or even just observation on the part of Capitol and DC police forces. This was all very predictable. When I saw the first Trumpists attacking the barricades, I presumed that National Guard troops were on close stand-by and would come in to beef up the uniformed police. There were no National Guard forces available until much later. 

The Capitol police are fully capable of manning metal detectors, arresting a handful of protestors and their usual daily job. They are not capable of stopping an insurrection. Their first job is the security of the Members and their staff. When the insurrectionists breached Capitol grounds, they prioritized getting Members and staff to safety. They achieved that. Ultimately, the putsch failed. 

The first question is why they weren't prepared for an insurrection. 

So far, there have only been 52 arrests. Again, many on social media were wondering why they weren't arresting more people inside the Capitol. Again, it comes down to numbers. Their priority was clearing the Capitol grounds so that the counting of the Electoral votes could proceed and the members could be safe. Presumably, the 52 who were arrested were arrested for resisting those efforts. 

Here's the crux of the matter and I think just as important is finding out why they weren't prepared for an insurrection: what now? 

Federal law enforcement remains paralyzed by the memory of Ruby Ridge and Waco. They handle Rightist and Fascist groups very gingerly, at least in part because those groups are armed to the teeth. They presume, perhaps correctly, that every Randy Weaver becomes a martyr that creates more radicalization. However, at some point, this creates a feedback loop of lawlessness that culminated with insurrectionists storming the US Capitol. There is a direct line from how Ammon Bundy was handled to how yesterday unfolded.

There is ample evidence of who was breaking the law. These morons had their phones out, taking videos of themselves breaking the law. It made tactical sense not to try and arrest them all last night. You had a mob amped up on hate and anger, feeding off each other and not enough officers to both control them and arrest them.

However, they are now dispersing back to their homes. Arrest them in groups. Arrest them as they get off the plane. Arrest them on their way to work on Monday. 

I am sympathetic to the fact that a police force was unable to stop an insurrection. That's the military's job, usually. I am mildly understanding of not wanting to create martyrs or a mass casualty event in the halls of the Capitol. My understanding stops short of "let bygones be bygones."

Make no mistake, they will try this again. If there is one silver lining, it's that we now have a dry run for what they will attempt on January 20th. The authorities in DC were naïve in the extreme in thinking that the Trumpist Brown Shirts were just another protest group, that could be handled like just another protest. The blinders are off. Everyone of us who were saying Trump is this bad are exactly right. His supporters really are Deplorables and they are currently simmering in their 8chan rooms waiting to try this again.

Yesterday was a declaration of civil war by those Deplorables and there can be no confusion about what comes next.