Trump Climbing Flag Pool Raising It Again
By MARY CLARE JALONICK, ANDREW TAYLOR, LISA MASCARO and CALVIN WOODWARD
WASHINGTON (AP) — "Where are they?" a Trump supporter demanded in a oversupply of dozens roaming the halls of the Capitol, bearing Trump flags and pounding on doors.
They — lawmakers, staff members and more — were hiding nether tables, hunkered in lockdowns, saying prayers and seeing the fruits of the country's divisions upwardly close and violent.
Guns were drawn. A adult female was shot and killed by police, and iii others died in apparent medical emergencies. A Trump flag hung on the Capitol. The graceful Rotunda reeked of tear gas. Drinking glass shattered.
On Wednesday, hallowed spaces of American democracy, one later on another, yielded to the occupation of Congress.
The pro-Trump mob took over the presiding officer'southward chair in the Senate, the offices of the House speaker and the Senate dais, where one yelled, "Trump won that ballot."
They mocked its leaders, posing for photos in the part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ane with his anxiety propped on a desk in her office, another sitting in the same seat Vice President Mike Pence had occupied only moments before during the proceedings to certify the Electoral College vote. That certification would eventually take place, but not until well subsequently midnight.
There was nonetheless a heavy police presence at the Capitol on Th morning. A large American flag flew from the presidential countdown stand that a solar day earlier was damaged during the siege.
Wed began as a day of reckoning for President Donald Trump's futile attempt to cling to power as Congress took up the certification of President-elect Joe Biden'southward victory. Information technology devolved into scenes of fear and agony that left a prime ritual of American democracy in tatters.
Trump told his morning time crowd at the Ellipse that he would go with them to the Capitol, only he didn't. Instead he sent them off with incendiary rhetoric.
"If y'all don't fight similar hell, y'all're not going to have a country anymore," he said. "Permit the weak ones get out," he went on. "This is a time for strength."
His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the crowd, "Let'due south have trial by combat."
What happened Wednesday was nothing less than an attempted coup, said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., a frequent Trump critic, said, "Today, the United States Capitol — the world'due south greatest symbol of cocky-regime — was ransacked while the leader of the free earth cowered behind his keyboard."
Sasse went on: "Lies accept consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the president's addiction to constantly stoking division."
Police said they recovered ii pipe bombs, one outside the Democratic National Committee and one outside the Republican National Committee and a libation from a vehicle that had a long gun and Molotov cocktail on Capitol grounds.
Yet Trump, in a video posted 90 minutes after lawmakers were evacuated, told the insurrectionists "We love you. You're very special," while asking them to go home.
Government eventually regained control as night fell.
Heavily armed officers brought in equally reinforcements started using tear gas in a coordinated effort to get people moving toward the door, then combed the halls for stragglers, pushing the mob farther out onto the plaza and lawn, in clouds of tear gas, flash-bangs and percussion grenades.
Video footage as well showed officers letting people calmly walk out the doors of the Capitol despite the rioting and vandalism. But about a dozen arrests were fabricated in the hours after regime regained command. They said a woman was shot earlier as the mob tried to intermission through a barricaded door in the Capitol where police were armed on the other side.
She was hospitalized with a gunshot wound and after died.
Early on, some inside the Capitol saw the trouble coming outside the windows. Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota surveyed the growing oversupply on the grounds not long after Trump had addressed his supporters by the Ellipse, fueling their grievances over an ballot that he and they say he won, against all evidence.
"I looked out the windows and could run across how outmanned the Capitol Police were," Phillips said. Under the very risers fix upward for Biden's inauguration, Trump supporters clashed with police who blasted pepper spray in an attempt to concur them back.
It didn't work. Throngs of maskless MAGA-hatted demonstrators tore down metal barricades at the lesser of the Capitol'southward steps. Some in the crowd were shouting "traitors" equally officers tried to keep them back. They bankrupt into the building.
Announcements blared: Due to an "external security threat," no one could enter or exit the Capitol complex, the recording said. A loud bang sounded every bit officials detonated a suspicious package to make certain it was not unsafe.
It was about one:xv p.one thousand. when New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas, a Democrat, said Capitol Police banged on his door and "told united states of america to drop everything, become out as quickly as we could."
"It was scenic how quickly law enforcement got overwhelmed by these protesters," he told The Associated Press.
Presently after 2 p.thou., Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated from the Senate as protesters and police shouted outside the doors.
"Protesters are in the building," were the concluding words picked up past a microphone carrying a live feed of the Senate before information technology shut off.
Police evacuated the bedroom at ii:xxx p.g., grabbing boxes of Electoral Higher certificates as they left.
Phillips yelled at Republicans, "This is considering of you!"
Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., told reporters he was in the House bedchamber when protesters began storming it. He said security officers urged lawmakers to put gas masks on and herded them into a corner of the massive room.
"When nosotros got over to other side of the gallery, the Republican side, they made united states of america all go down, you could run into that they were fending off some sort of assail, it looked like," he said. "They had a slice of furniture upward confronting the door, the door, the entry to the flooring from the Rotunda, and they had guns pulled." The officers eventually escorted the lawmakers out of the bedroom.
Shortly after being told to put on gas masks, almost members were quickly escorted out of the sleeping room. Merely some members remained in the upper gallery seats, where they had been seated due to distancing requirements.
Along with a group of reporters who had been escorted from the printing surface area and Capitol workers who act as ushers, the members ducked on the floor as police secured a door to the sleeping room down below with guns pointed. Later on making sure the hallways were articulate, police swiftly escorted the members and others downward a series of hallways and tunnels to a cafeteria in one of the House office buildings.
Describing the scene, Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut said "there was a point in that location where officers had their guns and weapons pointed at the door, they were obviously expecting a breach through the door. It was clear that there were pretty close to pulling the trigger so they asked us all to get downwardly in the chamber."
As he walked out of the Capitol, Himes said he had lived in Latin America and "always assumed information technology could never happen here.
"We've known for years that our democracy was in peril and this is hopefully the worst and final moment of it," Himes said. "Only with a president egging these people on, with the Republicans doing all they can to try to make people experience like their democracy has been taken away from them even though they're the ones doing the taking, it'south really difficult, actually deplorable. I spent my entire political career reaching out to the other side. And it's really hard to encounter this."
Democratic Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley was besides in the balcony. "It's not good to be around terrified colleagues, with guns drawn toward people who accept a barricade … people crying. Non what you want to see," he said.
"This is how a insurrection is started," said Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif. "This is how commonwealth dies."
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Associated Press writers Ben Play a joke on, Ashraf Khalil, Alan Fram and Michael Balsamo in Washington and Michael Casey in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/01/07/chaos-violence-mockery-as-pro-trump-mob-occupies-congress-2
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