WASHINGTON (AP) – Under battle flags bearing the name of Donald Trump, the Capitol attackers pinned a bloody police officer into a doorway, his contorted face and screams captured on video. They fatally wound another officer with a blunt weapon and knocked a third over a railing into the crowd with their bodies.
Hang Mike Pence! the insurgents sang as they pushed in and beat the police with pipes. They also demanded where house speaker Nancy Pelosi was. They hunted all the legislators, “Where are they?” Outside was an improvised gallows, complete with sturdy wooden steps and the noose. Rifles and pipe bombs were stored nearby.
Just days later, the scale of the danger of one of the darkest periods in American democracy comes into play. The sinister nature of the attack has become apparent, betraying the crowd as a force determined to occupy the inner shrines of Congress and take down leaders – including Trump’s vice president and Democratic House speaker .
This wasn’t just a collection of Trump supporters with MAGA bling caught in a wave.
That revelation came in real time to Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., Who briefly took over the proceedings in the House room when the crowd closed on Wednesday and the speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, was herded into safer quarters just before everything went. . haywire.
AP video
“I saw a crowd of people banging on that glass screaming,” he told The Associated Press on Sunday. “Looking at their faces, I noticed that these are not protesters. These are people who want to harm. “
“What I envisioned,” he said, “was homegrown fascism out of control.”
Pelosi said on Sunday, “The evidence is that it was a well-planned, organized group with leadership and guidance and direction. And the direction was to get people. She didn’t go further on that point in a ’60 Minutes’ interview on CBS.
The scenes of anger, violence and pain are so big that it is still impossible to comprehend. But with countless smartphone videos emerging from the scene, many from gloating insurgents themselves, and more lawmakers narrating the chaos around them, the outline of the uprising is becoming increasingly visible.
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THE STAGING
The crowd received explicit marching orders from Trump and even more encouragement from the president’s men.
“Fight like hell,” Trump urged supporters of the staging. “Let’s take trial by fight,” pleaded with his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, whose attempt to throw away the election results in a courtroom failed. It’s time to “take up and kick names,” said Republican Representative Mo Brooks from Alabama.
Criminals pardoned by Trump, including Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, came forward at rallies on the eve of the attack to tell the crowd that they were fighting a battle between good and evil and that they were on the side of the good . On Capitol Hill, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri gave a clenched fist salute to the hordes outside the Capitol when he pulled up to challenge the election results.
The crowd was pumped. Until just after 2 p.m., Senate Leader Mitch McConnell was at the helm for the final minutes of the decorum in conjunction with Pence, who fulfilled his ceremonial role that foresaw the trial.
Both men had supported Trump’s agenda and for four years provocations had been excused or ignored, but now had no mechanism or will to undermine the election won by Biden. That placed them high among the targets of the insurgents, no different in the minds of the crowd than the “socialists.”
“If this election were to be reversed by mere allegations from the losing party, our democracy would go into a death spiral,” McConnell told his office, not long before things got out of hand in what lawmakers call the “People’s House.”
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THE ATTACK
Thousands of people had flooded the Capitol. They stormed police and metal barricades outside the building, shoving and beating officers in the way. The attack quickly penetrated the much-outnumbered police line; officers ran and beat a man.
Outside, near the structure built for Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, a man threw a red fire extinguisher at the helmeted head of a police officer. Then he picked up a megaphone and threw it at officers too.
The officer’s identity could not be immediately confirmed. But Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who was injured in the chaos, died the following night; officials say he was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.
Shortly after 2:00 PM, Capitol Police sent a warning to tell the workers in an office building of the house to go to underground transport tunnels that traverse the complex. Minutes later, Pence was taken from the Senate Chamber to a secret location and police announced the closure of the Capitol. “You are allowed to walk through the building (s), but stay away from outside windows and doors,” the email said. “If you’re outside, take cover.”
At 2:15 PM, the Senate dropped the electoral college debate and a voice came through the room’s audio system: “The protesters are in the building.” The doors to the House room were barricaded and lawmakers were told they might have to duck under their seats or move into the House floor wardrobes because the crowd has broken through the Capitol Rotunda.
Even before the crowd reached the sealed doors of the House room, Capitol police pulled Pelosi away from the stage, she told “60 Minutes.”
“I said, ‘No, I want to be here’,” she said. ‘And they said,’ Well no, you have to go. ‘I said,’ No, I’m not leaving. ‘ They said, “No, you have to go.” She did.
At 2:44 PM, as lawmakers in the House chamber prepared to be evacuated, a shot was heard from outside, in the Speaker’s Lobby on the other side of the barricaded doors. That’s when Ashli Babbit, who wore a Trump flag as a cape, was shot on camera while insurgents scolded, her blood pooling on the white marble floor.
The California Air Force veteran had climbed through a broken window in the Speaker’s Lobby before being struck down by a gunshot from a police officer.
Back in the room of the House, a woman was seen and heard on the balcony. Why she did that only became clear later when the video made the rounds. She shouted a prayer.
Within about 10 minutes of the shooting, House lawmakers and staff members huddled in the attack with terror etched in their faces had been taken from the room and the gallery to a secure room. The crowd broke into Pelosi’s offices while members of her staff hid in one of the rooms of her suite.
“The staff went under the table, barricaded the door, turned off the lights and kept silent in the dark,” she said. “Two and a half hours under the table.”
On the Senate side, the Capitol Police had circled the room and allowed all staff and reporters and any nearby senators to enter the room and locked them up. At one point, there were about 200 people inside; Between McConnell and the Democratic leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, stood an officer armed with what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon.
Authorities then ordered evacuation and rushed everyone to a safe location, with Senate parliamentary staff picking up the boxes containing the Electoral Collage certificates.
Although the attackers had been sent off the Capitol with Trump’s exhortation to fight, in some cases they seemed surprised that they actually made it.
When they entered the abandoned Senate room, they walked around, rummaged through papers, sat at desks, and took videos and photos. One of them climbed to the podium and shouted, “Trump has won that election!” Two others were photographed with flexible cuffs commonly used for mass arrests.
But outside the chamber, the hunt for legislators was still going on. “Where are they?” people could be heard shouting.
That question could also have applied to reinforcements – where were they?
At about 5:30 p.m., once the National Guard arrived to replenish the overwhelmed Capitol Police force, a full-blown attempt to get the attackers out began.
Heavily armed officers brought in as reinforcements began using tear gas in a coordinated manner to move people to the door, then combed the halls looking for those left behind. As darkness fell, they pushed the crowd further out into the square and the lawn, with officers in riot gear in full shields and clouds of tear gas, flashes and percussion grenades.
At 7:23 PM, officials announced that people squatting in two nearby Congress office buildings could leave “if anyone has to.”
Within an hour the Senate had resumed its work and the House followed suit, bringing the People’s House back under the control of the people’s representatives. Lawmakers confirmed Biden’s election victory early the next morning, shocked by the catastrophic security failure.
Representative Maxine Waters, D-Ca., Told AP Sunday it was as if the Capitol Police were “naked” to the attackers. “It turned out it was the worst form of non-security anyone could ever imagine.”
McGovern said, “I was so incredulous that this could possibly happen. These domestic terrorists were in the People’s House, they desecrated the People’s House and destroyed the People’s House. “
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Associated Press writers Dustin Weaver in Washington and Michael Casey in Concord, New Hampshire contributed to this report. Reeves reported from Birmingham, Alabama.