AP
Washington Hispanic:
US lawmakers promised to investigate how the Capitol Police handled Wednesday’s violent assault on the building, questioning whether the lack of preparation allowed the mob to occupy and wreck the building.
The United States Capitol Police, whose task is to protect Congress, asked other security forces for help in the face of the protesters’ irruption that forced legislators to hide. Both the authorities and supporters of President Donald Trump used chemical irritants during the occupation of the complex, which lasted several hours before it was evicted on Wednesday night.
Four people died : a woman shot inside the Capitol and three others for “medical emergencies” related to the incident, explained Robert Contee, chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department.
According to Police, as of Wednesday night there were 52 detainees, including 26 who were arrested on the Capitol grounds. Fourteen officers were injured, Contee said.
The assault “raises serious security concerns,” said California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of the House Administration Committee. , adding that the committee will work with the leaders of the two chambers to review the police response, and its preparation.
The incident forced the deputies to duck under their seats and put on masks anti-gas, while police tried futilely to barricade the building as people began to advance from a rally in support of Trump held near the White House. The mayor of Washington decreed a night curfew in an attempt to curb the violence.
Val Demings, a Florida Democratic representative and former police chief, said it was “painfully obvious.” that the Capitol Police “were not prepared for today. I thought we would have had a greater show of force, that more steps would have been taken early on to make sure there was a designated area for protesters at a safe distance from the Capitol. ”
In an interview with MSNBC television on Wednesday night, Demings said that it appeared that the police did not have enough troops, adding that they “did not appear to have a clear operational plan to really address” the thousands of protesters who arrived at the Capitol. following Trump’s complaints about a “rigged election.”
The protesters were incited by Trump, who spent the last weeks falsely attacking the integrity of the presidential election and urging his supporters to go to Washington to protest against the certification in Congress of the victory of the president-elect, Joe Biden. The protesters interrupted this process for almost seven hours.
The mob broke windows, entered the chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives and the offices of legislators, including that of the president of House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
There are “many unanswered questions and I am determined to get answers to all the questions about what went wrong today,” Demings stated.
A police spokeswoman cannot be immediately reached for comment Wednesday night.
Karen Bass, Democratic Rep from California, She was outraged after seeing a Capitol Police officer posing for a photo with an assailant on social media. “Would you take a selfie with someone who is robbing a bank?” He asked. “I can’t imagine if a couple thousand protesters (from the Black Lives Matters movement) had entered the Capitol, and there were 13 people detained.”
For his part, Tim Ryan, a Democratic Congressman from Ohio, suggested that there could be changes in the leadership of the Capitol Police.