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Five people — including a heroic Capitol Police officer — are dead as the result of the attack by rioters on a woefully unprepared U.S. Capitol Wednesday. Congress needs to review the circumstances of this attack, and the lawbreakers who invaded must be prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law.
This outrageous assault on the heart of our democratic government must never be repeated.
The rioters — who absurdly claim to be patriots but acted and performed like street thugs -- attacked the people's house and assaulted the true patriots of the Capitol Police, and they bear full responsibilities for their barbaric actions. But the leadership of law enforcement agencies tasked with protecting the Capitol must be held accountable as well.
Responding to justified outrage by members of Congress demanding their resignations, Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund, House Sergeant at Arms Paul D. Irving and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael C. Stenger are all resigning in the wake of their failure to prepare for the attack. This should impress on whoever succeeds them that a failure of leadership like this is intolerable.
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Don’t blame the brave law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to defend the Capitol and its occupants for the invasion. Capitol Police officers and others on the scene did all they could, but they were set up to fail by their failed leaders.
And sadly, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, a 12-year veteran of the force, paid the ultimate price. He died Thursday after being severely injured in the rioting. Several police agencies are investigating his death as a homicide.
While a full investigation of everything that happened during Wednesday’s rioting is needed, some things are already clear.
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First, law enforcement was understaffed because of poor planning by leadership. Additional manpower and equipment should have been brought in, as happens with other events like the State of the Union address, presidential inaugurations and some other large protest demonstrations.
A news release issued Thursday by the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police union described the scene when city officers entered the Capitol. It said that "when we arrived, it was obvious that our fellow officers of the US Capitol Police were trying valiantly to stop the onslaught of rioters. While it is unclear at this preliminary stage exactly how the building was breached so quickly, it appears likely that US Capitol Police leadership was ill-prepared for this attack, both in manpower, and in resources."
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The Capitol Police are currently understaffed. Police agencies around the country generally have a hard time recruiting, and the Capitol Police Department is no exception. This is due in part to the hate and vilification that some members of Congress and other elected officials in state and local government have directed against police.
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Police are underpaid, overworked and underappreciated by many. They are routinely falsely accused of racism and other wrongdoing because of the bad behavior of a few. And, of course, their jobs require them to deal with dangerous armed criminals at times, never knowing if they will make it home at the end of their shift.
Police leadership clearly underestimated the potential for violence at what started out as a demonstration in support of President Trump’s claim that voter fraud by his opponents cost him his reelection bid. Pro-Trump crowds usually don’t engage in the violence that sometimes mars protests by far-left groups and the dangerous terrorist group Antifa.
But law enforcement leadership should have conducted an event analysis long before the Wednesday protest and prepared for trouble. It was no secret that the event would draw many thousands of people from around the country, and the time and place of the initial gathering were well known.
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Some advanced homework and planning as part of a careful review by leadership could have resulted in successfully securing the Capitol and nearby congressional office buildings and preventing any breach at all.
Was the analysis done? I don’t know. But clearly, law enforcement agencies were unprepared and had nowhere near the number of officers needed to handle the massive angry crowd that gathered.
When the security perimeter around the Capitol was breached officers were screamed at, spit on and assaulted while attempting to hold the crowd back. Many officers were injured doing their job of protecting others.
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Police correctly issued a shelter-in-place order for people in the Capitol and nearby office buildings. This order clearly saved lives and protected members of Congress and their staffs from being injured.
I know many Capitol Police officers well from my time as acting director and an executive associate director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. They were courteous and professional whenever I visited the Capitol and they worked with my own security team. I always took the time to personally thank the officers for serving this nation and putting themselves in harm’s way.
Unfortunately, many of the Capitol Police officers would share with me that there were numerous members of Congress who would look down on them, wouldn’t engage them in conversation and wouldn’t show them the common decency of thanking them for standing on the front line and keeping them safe.
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Some lawmakers treated the officers courteously, of course. But this should have been the universal response and it wasn’t.
Yet the Capitol Police officers stood post and protected the building and everyone inside it Wednesday — as they do every day — even those who scorn law enforcement and push for their defunding of police.
One final note. As I was writing this, President-elect Joe Biden held a news conference and said Black Lives Matter protesters would have been treated "very differently" than the rioters who attacked the Capitol.
I agree.
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In many cities around the country last summer, Democratic elected officials ordered police to stand down as people claiming to be Black Lives Matter supporters rioted, looted and set fires in cities. This was the wrong response and simply encouraged more lawless behavior.
Lawbreaking and violence can’t be tolerated, whether it comes from who profess allegiance to the right or the left. We all have the right to protest peacefully, but we can’t afford to condone criminal activity, regardless of the merits of the issue being protested.