If you look at the very end of the second video, you can see that the camera pans behind the cameraman and shows a bunch of people trespassing beyond the barricades. The position the police were defending was already compromised.
I was thinking the same thing, but then, what's the reasoning behind moving the barricades out of the way? "There are too many protestors, we need to help them move the barricades" doesn't make sense. They then turn their backs on the protestors and casually walk towards the capitol.
More surprising is that this protest wasn't a "flash mob" - it was planned and known about publicly for weeks - even promoted by the president. Why were they so unprepared?
Certainly possible that the explanation was "sheer incompetence" in both cases.
They let them in; there are videos of them opening the cordons around the building.
Some cops were either in on it, or at least sympathetic. They need to be dragged before Congress next month to answer for their behavior, assuming the republic survives.
Anyone can visit Capitol Hill (I did when I visited Washington DC a couple of years ago). It’s not a building with turrets and armed guards all around it. It’s a symbol of democracy, so it’s intentionally designed that way.
Given what happened today, it’s clear that this action was either malicious or incompetent. There is no possible way to justify their actions as “crowd control” given that they totally lost control of the crowd and let them riot throughout the capital building. Tear gassing the inside of your own legislature is pretty high on the “we fucked up” scale.
What makes it particularly unforgivable is that all of this was predictable. Both respectable commentators and shadier internet boards have been talking about this for weeks. For the same city that was ready to cover every step of the Jefferson memorial with armored troops at the hint of a BLM protest to be caught flat footed by the most predictable violence in the past year is inexcusable. Heads need to (metaphorically) roll.
I think the comment you are replying to is saying that the area the cops let those people into was either already over run and they were moving to a different place to keep people out. Or that it was area the people were allowed to be in, hence the other non cops in the area and so it’s not a problem that they were let it. Not that the cops were just abandoning there job and letting people into an area they shouldn’t have.
I have no context for where this is and if it’s true but I think you are misrepresenting the above comment.
This is the perimeter barricade around the capitol building. Today, this was a do-not-cross line for anyone not working in the building... or it was supposed to be.
Six policeman are unlikely to be able to hold a crowd like that back. They were probably told to fall back to concentrate their forces elsewhere. Removing the barriers prevents injury to the crowd.
The Capitol Police seemed to be very ill prepared to deal with events today, which is quite sad given that the protest at least was no surprise.
My instincts say they were falling back/giving up their positions, you don't want to escalate with such a large mob, they would surge you and you'd end up dead.
Same with the cops posing for selfies with the protesters, IMO they had to pretend to be friendly because otherwise it'll turn the mob against them. And they (the cops) are outnumbered.
This has historical precedent. The far-right in the Weimar republic were treated far more softly than the communists were. The complicit behaviour of the authorities definitely played favourites and can probably be partially blamed for what happened.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1346920198461419...
https://mobile.twitter.com/cevansavenger/status/134692092431...