Congressman Lou Correa told Real America News that when the mob of Trump supporters stormed the congress, “we thought we were going to have a coup, and possibly that is what the president wanted, but he did not get the people follow him. ”
The Orange County Democratic representative said that inside the Capitol a shootout between the attackers motivated by Trump and the police of the compound was about to break out, which would have reached unexpected proportions .
“The Capitol police are very well armed and would easily have killed hundreds of the president’s protesters, but a bigger problem would have started because Trump’s supporters were also armed, had bombs and Pepper gases, ”he explained.
Congressmen moments after the assault on the Capitol in Washington . When the president’s followers tried to enter the Capitol, the police moved away to protect Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of Congress, Nancy Pelosi, and Speaker of the Senate, Mith McConnell.
“Some 30 Minutes later the policemen returned and told the rest of us to get down on the floor, and to try to get out at the first opportunity, but there was no where, we were already surrounded, “Correa recalled.
“Many of my colleagues are seniors, others are women; I was with several of them at the top of a balcony and tried to protect them, I noticed that some of them felt panic “, the congressman spoke.
“We thought they were going to massacre us,” emphasized, some legislators “cried, others prayed, I know because they beat each other. You could hear that the invaders of the enclosure were nearby, it was total chaos. ”
Congressman Lou Correa. Some Capitol Police They returned to the location where Correa and his colleagues were “and they told us that as a precaution we should wear gas masks, but what masks, if we didn’t have one?
The policemen returned with the masks and warned that both the authorities and Trump supporters had pepper gas and could use them. Congressman Correa helped some of his older colleagues to adjust the masks, while still protecting them and monitoring the situation.
“The president had managed to create all the chaos he wanted, but let me tell you This is important: as they say, that ‘there is no harm that does not come’, in the midst of all that chaos, I noticed that both my Republican and Democratic colleagues began to say things like ‘enough is enough, it was enough; We have to unite ‘”, recalled the legislator.
” If it was not the saddest day on Capitol Hill, it has been one of the saddest in the history of our country, “he commented.
“We had the first invasion of Congress since 1812 , when the English burned down the Capitol ”, said Correa.
The legislator gave his statements to Real America News in a telephone conversation when he was preparing to board a flight to California to come to inform his constituents.
Shortly before, in a brief statement, Congressman Correa described Trump as “a dictator, who has incited US citizens to storm the Capitol” .
He warned that “there are people who can be injured and who can die because Trump refuses to leave the presidency. It is a shame for this country. ”
In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti said that Trump should leave office because not only can he not keep the peace, but he incites violence.
He said that what everyone saw on Wednesday “was thugs, thugs who brought an aberration to our capital by attacking our Capitol. ”
The attack was in the hands of“ a group of motivated people, that were incited by the President of the United States, a phrase that I never thought I would say in my life “, declared the mayor.
He recalled that “at Trump’s urging, thousands of his supporters flocked to Washington on Wednesday for a morning rally. There the president addressed the crowd repeating his claims that the election was stolen by fraud. Then Trump urged the crowd to march to the Capitol. ”
Garcetti expressed that this is the time when Trump should be summoned to dismiss him, for his insistent calls for violence, for far-right faction identified as Proud Boys, who spearheaded the seizure of the Capitol.
The mayor added that Trump must leave office “early if he cannot keep the peace of this country; if he cannot fulfill the oath to defend the Constitution and protect our country against foreign and domestic enemies, because with Trump we saw what domestic enemies are like. ”
The president of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, Hilda Solís, a former congresswoman, stressed that “if Donald Trump has any decency left, he must accept that he lost the election.”
“Our leaders in Congress should not have to fear for their lives.” , Solís commented.
Governor Gavin Newsom explained that “peaceful protest is an important mechanism of our democracy, but what we saw on Capitol Hill was a direct assault on our democracy and institutions.”
In California, “we are concerned about the safety of the California legislative delegation and we try to offer support in all possible ways,” but “President Trump must call for an end to this situation and recognize the will of the people to bring President-elect Biden to House B lanca ”.