Jan. 6 Security Failure Over White Nationalists Believing They Are Police Friendly
Security at the U.S. Capitol failed during the insurrection last year largely because of the misconception that extremist right-wingers would be “friendly” to the police, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), testified before Jan. 6 House committee.
“People thought they were friendly to law enforcement and that they loved their country,” Bowser said in a new testimony transcript released Thursday’s Jan. 6 committee. “People didn’t think that these white nationalists would overthrow the Capitol building,” she added.
William Walker, head of the D.C. National Guard during the insurrection, told Jan. 6 committee members that the response Jan. 6 would have been “vastly different” and harsher had the rioters been Black. He stated that many of the people in the crowd would have been more likely to be killed by law enforcement. transcript of his testimony Released Tuesday.
“I saw enough to where I would have probably been using deadly force,” Walker testified. “I think it would have been more bloodshed if the composition would have been different.”
The insurrection resulted in more than 100 injuries to officers of the U.S. Capitol Police Department as well as the local Metropolitan Police Department. Five officers were killed by stroke and four died from suicide after the insurrection.
Bowser also criticized the Defense Department for failing to respond faster to the Capitol when rioters surrounded the building.
Bowser recalled talking to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy on the phone about the increasing violence at the Capitol. “You’re seeing what I’ seeing; your Capitol is being overrun,” she recalled telling him.
Both local and national law enforcement officials have been sharply criticised for not being able to anticipate the magnitude of violence that day, despite numerous convincing signs found in social media posts and other online activity.
Bowser suggested that part of the failure could have been due to a faulty judgment about which Americans were at risk of violence.
But Bowser testified that MAGA disciples — overwhelmingly white — had already proven themselves to be increasingly aggressive with police in demonstrations and riots in D.C. in December 2020.
“In December … we had a flurry of these white nationalist groups come in and vandalize some of our churches; Proud Boys, so-called Proud Boys and the like,” Bowser recalled. “We had a lot of street antagonism and violence.”
“That was the first time we saw those groups really disrupt and vandalize, and were very aggressive with the police,” the mayor told the House committee. “I think our experience with them in December showed us that they were antagonistic to law enforcement.”
Around 900 people were arrested on charges related to the storming at the Capitol. These include trespass, property theft, damage and assault, and seditious conspiracies.