[simonh]

A lot of the protesters have said they expected the police to be largely on their side. I suspect that when things got violent both the armed rioters and police realised that guns would just end up in a blood bath on both sides, and the first person to shoot on either side would probably end up dead pretty quickly.

[flukus]

I suspect the police weren't shooting because they realized how overwhelmed they were. I've seen a couple of videos where they had drawn their guns and prepared to fire but they were simply surrounded.

[throwaway316943]

The interaction I saw between the rioters and those defending the Capitol just after the woman was shot seem more enlightening than this theory.

[bluedino]

Crowds would have dispersed pretty quickly if the cops started shooting

[zepto]

Probably not. Even when actually shot, people don’t always run. It would be pretty hard for them to stop the crowd with a few cops and a few handguns.

[philwelch]

Or they would have stormed the cops in a blind rage, killed them, and taken their weapons.

[throwaway_6142]

If I suspend my disbelief for a second, do you have a link to any interviews or similar with those protesters?

Surely you are not conflating quotes from peaceful demonstrators against (alleged) election fraud, with militants trying to violently overthrow the government?

[simonh]

Here's a WP article on it. I remember seeing video of a woman retreating from the Capitol saying something about them being on the same side as the police and complaining why they weren't joining them, but I can't find it, sorry. One of the protesters was carrying blue lives matter flag.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IKWa_6...

[philwelch]

Is this the same woman who was crying, “they pushed me down and maced me” while dabbing her face with an onion?

[simonh]

That's the one. There's a theory that onions help neutralise the effects of mace, they've been used by protesters in the Middle East for this and it's possible some of the Capitol rioters came with them and gave her one.

[philwelch]

That sounds dubious to me. Have you chopped onions? What I’ve heard is that she probably wasn’t maced and was just using the onion to irritate her eyes and force tears to fake being maced. (People who actually get maced tend to be slobbery, snotty messes.)