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There Was No Plan, an Epic Fail
Apparently Capitol Police rejected offers of assistance of additional law enforcement help. I listened to a press conference Thursday morning involving the mayor of DC. She said there was going to be an investigation of what happened. That tells me that there was no coordinated plan to protect the city, or federal buildings.
WASHINGTON — Three days before the pro-President Donald Trump riot at the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the U.S Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower. And as the mob descended on the building Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. The police turned them down both times, according to a defense official and two people familiar with the matter.
There should have been a meeting with the metro police, and all federal law enforcement agencies to formulate a coordinated plan to set up a perimeter around the Capitol building, as well as a plan for moving officers around the city to other trouble spots.
Justice officials FBI and other agencies began to monitor Hotels, flights and social media for weeks and were expecting massive crowds. Mayor Muriel Bowser had warned of impending violence for weeks, and businesses had closed in anticipation. She requested National Guard help from the Pentagon on Dec. 31, but the Capitol Police turned down the Jan. 3 offer from the Defense Department, according to Kenneth Rapuano, assistant defense secretary for homeland security.
The Justice Department’s offer for FBI support as the protesters grew violent was rejected by the Capitol Police, according to the two people familiar with the matter. They were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said that as the rioting was underway, it became clear that the Capitol Police were overrun. There was no contingency planning done in advance for what forces could do in case of a problem at the Capitol. “They’ve got to ask us, the request has to come to us,” said McCarthy.
Nothing was learned from the incident on January 3. Watching the January 6 incident, it was obvious that there was no plan to prevent violent entry into the Capitol building. Bike racks are not enough to prevent entry into a building. They can be used as weapons against police, or as seen in one video as a battering ram to break through a door.
Once they’re inside you’ve lost the battle. The Capitol perimeter should have been protected by fences at around seven-feet high. Once the fence is assaulted then impact munitions, and gas should be used to force people away from the fence. If you have to retreat then flash bangs, and grenades containing about 40 rubber balls can can be slid across the pavement into the crowd. The second line of defense should be at all entry points, outside the building.
You have to break the collective mindset of the mob by using pain compliance to instill an individual mindset. The individual mindset is; I better get the hell out here before I get hurt.
Rioters will be injured, as will the media; once the police declare an unlawful assembly then everyone must leave. If you want to run with the bulls don’t whine about being gored.
One final comment. The apparent failure to have a coordinated plan may have led to the shooting death of a woman in the Capitol building. Once the plainclothes protection unit for members of Congress, their staff, and building employees became the second line of defense it reveals the epic fail of no plan.
Published in Policing
People used to say, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Or was that the plan all along?
My uncle was a Capitol Hill policeman in the late 1950s when he was a student at Georgetown. His father was an AA for a congressman so it was a patronage job. Is this how the Capitol Hill Police is still run?
I was told that the woman was unarmed, in an unarmed group walking up some steps surrounded by Metro police, and gunned down at close range from under cover, and that one of the cops surrounding her signalled a “thumbs-up” to the killer.
If true, this bothers me.
Is this your understanding of the facts?
Always appreciate your insight.
I think it’s pretty clear at this point that this was allowed to happen.
That is not what happened. I’m waiting until more info comes. I’ve seen one video of a barricaded door. A window next to the door was smashed, and she started to step through the window. Hopefully there will be a transcript of incident that will be made public.
It was not an epic fail. It was a Charlottesville type political trap
It may be. Chris Matthews of MSNBC was a Capitol Hill police officer.
There is a plan to make DC a state, right?
Thanks, Doug. Could you clarify the rest? Are you saying that
I didn’t see the video myself, so I am asking you as someone who did, and someone who knows what properly trained cops would and would not do.
I think that is a great concept. It is a 10 mile by 10 mile area. Let’s divide the whole country into 10×10 states and give them senators
I can read anything I like into the video at this point I prefer to wait for the investigation.
FYI, the head of the capitol police has resigned.
That is a possibility. But Democrats and media coordinate, yet major media were not at the scene initially.
Some Capitol rioters were recorded with shields and helmets, which indicates expectation of possible violence. Andy Ngo, who has led journalistic investigation of Antifa in Portland and elsewhere, reported that at least one DC rioter arrested today has ties to Antifa and anti-Trump groups.
Another possibility is that the DC mayor and company believe Democrats’ stated fear that Trump is a wannabe dictator who “will not concede” (according to his own words, though I think he was referring to legal process). If the mayor truly suspected Trump might attempt a coup, then she might be expected to distrust federal officers under his authority to “protect” Congress during the formal transition of power.
But the most likely explanation is that DC Democrats were acting in accordance with their usual irrationality.
My thoughts on the public video of the shooting are in Flicker’s conversation.
Charlottesville is a bit different. The police tried to get the venue changed to a different park. One group had a permit, and the Antifa group did not. The ACLU filed a suit to prevent the venue change. The original site was small and separating the two groups was almost impossible. The judge did not allow the venue change. Needless to say the ACLU and the judge don’t have to clean up the mess.
Both groups arrived early, and the group that had the permit arrived before the start time on the permit. Both groups arrived in homemade armor. The officer in charge should have ended the whole thing as the permitted group was in the park before the time on the permit.
There was no plan to deal with either side as they made their way into town.
As a side note the Capitol Police have a total of 2300 officers. That’s about 1100 more officers than Portland. Right now nothing has been said about how many officers were available for the riot on Capitol Hill.
@dougwatt, will you please comment on this clip? Thank you! It looks to me as though people were allowed in?
https://mobile.twitter.com/amuse/status/1347291917290262531
I saw the video clips yesterday. It was odd in that it was the last thing one would expect. I’m not justifying what was done by the protestors. She didn’t look to be ‘walking through’ the broken glass side light – it wasn’t full length (any person trying to get through would have to wriggle through a 16″-18″ opening about 36″ above the floor. It also didn’t appear that she was the one that broke the glass, it appeared that she was looking/leaning through the opening after the glass was broken.
The police officer that shot her didn’t yell any type of warning that I could hear, that’s why that shot was such a surprise. If that was a beat cop, he’d be subject to disciplinary right away – very itchy trigger finger. Reminded me of that Australian lady that was shot by a Minneapolis cop a couple years ago. No excuse for the protestor behavior but that officer did not seem in imminent danger to me.
The protestors should face the legal ramifications for what they did, so should that cop.
I have no idea who the officer was waving through the barricade area. Perhaps he was trying to get other officers to change their positions, perhaps not.
Thanks, Doug. I will not believe what I was told for now.
Must be heading to a Democrat safe place to make more $$$$
I’m going to stock up on 50 star flags.
The people were “strolling” in, as I see it. I think that was I there, I might just follow the crowd in; I wouldn’t think that I was breaking any law.
Well, this is almost funny. DC’s mayor has asked Congress to commission an investigation into the Capitol security failures.
What better way to deflect blame than to demand an external investigation? And what better way to conceal the truth than to put Democrats in charge of that investigation? It would conclude, of course, that Trump and Trump appointees are to blame.
The Capitol Police chief resigned. We will see a lot of this in the coming months as leftists destroy their own.
Does anybody want to notice that a 10×10 mile area that can not handle a low level protest without killing people wants to be elevated to the level of statehood. This 100 sq mile area wants the whole shebang, governors,lt governors, state secretaries, and all the other government levels required for a state.
If DC wants statehood so badly then give it back to the states it came from.
I’ll bet Capital Police leadership spends more time kissing Congressional ass than they do planning and leading.
I was reading an after-action report on this yesterday. Lots of mistakes were made. It seems like they (march people) and police started planning for a small event and were not able to adjust quickly enough to the growth. For example, the police (CPD) bought riot gear for use that day, but never trained with the gear or even tried it on beforehand. The Virginia state police had a big presence, but they arrived too late for coordinating with CPD. The city had a history of high tolerance of allowing 1st Amendment activities without permit, which delayed the decision to change venue (7 days before). Maybe an earlier decision would not have resulted lawsuit. Separating groups was problematic since a specific statue was the focal point of all groups. Both sides really were determined to be at the same spot at the same time.
Soon to be symbol of racism (DC and Puerto Rico have POC) and banned by online oligarchs. Everything is a psy-op. Everything is propaganda.
I actually don’t think there will be more states added.
For FY2020 the DoD budget was $738B. For that same year, the DoJ budget totaled $29.2B in discretionary spending, 51.1% of which was earmarked for law enforcement. And the Capitol fell in less than 2 hours to a guy dressed up like a drunken Minnesota Vikings fan.
Now, tell me again about the glories of government.
For doing a good job with Operation Chaos, the pivotal action in allowing the Leftists to “erase” a populist surge.