When a mob of President Trump’s supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, they faced much fewer police officers-by the end of today, fewer people were harassed.
Although more Washington DC officials were injured in the chaos of the Capitol, the arrests were quite different, resulting in the deaths of five people, including the police.
Even including the other 14 people arrested by the US Capitol Police, the number of people arrested by the two agencies in Wednesday’s riots was less than a quarter of the number who were detained by city police on June 1.
Activists in Washington, DC said that they were shocked by the deadly attack on the heart of American democracy, resulting in far fewer people being detained by the police than the clashes that broke out during protests against law enforcement.
Anthony Lorenzo Green, one of the activists who led the Black Lives Matter DC, said: “That̵
Green said that if “black life issue” protesters try to enter the Capitol, instead of the predominantly white pro-Trump crowd entering the Capitol, “we will be chained, we will be taken away, we will be shot, we will Killed.”
Fewer arrests, more officers injured
During the summer, when protests and riots occurred, no law enforcement personnel died in Washington, DC.
Of course, the summer protests and this week’s Capitol uprising are very different events-for example, there were probably many more protesters scattered across the wider part of the city last summer than on Wednesday.
MPD spokesperson Kristen Metzger said the department did not make more arrests on Wednesday, partly because, unlike during the summer protests, the city’s curfew was not announced before the incident.
“When we announced (the curfew) in advance, we had enough resources to bring people into the truck, and we were ready for mass arrests,” Metzger told CNN. “Because this was done later today, we are not prepared to carry out mass arrests until the curfew is in place later that afternoon.”
Metzger also pointed out that the Capitol is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Capitol Police, and that police in the area are only required to provide assistance after demonstrators damage the security facilities of the building.
She said: “By then, it will just control the situation and drive them out of the Capitol.”
Hopkins said: “We are a city that has been carrying out large-scale demonstrations.” “For any law enforcement agency in this city, they are caught off guard or don’t know what happened. It’s incredible. error.”
Arrests related to the Capitol invasion may increase. US Attorney Michael Sherwin of the US Acting DC said on Thursday that federal officials plan to censor social media footage from the disciples and arrest people they identify. Xuanwei said that federal prosecutors have prosecuted 15 people.
Congressional protesters face fewer harsh charges
So far, at least there have been clear differences in the severity of the accusations faced by those arrested at the Capitol and those arrested during the summer protests.
Most people arrested on Wednesday were detained on charges of misdemeanor curfew violation or illegal entry. The District of Columbia police arrested only one person and they specifically classified it as a felony: the 39-year-old man was charged with rioting and illegal entry into the Capitol. His arrest does not necessarily represent all felony arrests made on Wednesday, because DC police do not always include this information in the data. As prosecutors proceed to deal with the case, more people may face felony charges.
The office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, did not respond to a request for comment on the discrepancies in the arrests and charges. Bowser criticized the federal response to the riots and pointed out at a news conference on Wednesday that federal officials “used a different posture” compared to the highly militarized response to the summer protests.
President-elect Biden focused on the racial differences in his speech on Thursday, saying: “No one can tell me that if they have been protested against yesterday’s gangster life, they will not be dealt with very, very different from the mob. The mob attacked the Capitol.”
The data released by the police department also showed that more people were arrested in the “Black Life Incident” protests than those arrested this week, most of them flocking to the capital from other parts of the country.
Among those arrested who can provide residency status, police data show that 94% of those arrested between late May and August were from Washington, DC, Maryland or Virginia. Of those arrested in the early morning on Wednesday or Thursday, only 25% were from the same area.
The American Civil Liberties Union executive, Hopkins, said the difference between treating “white supremacists coming to our city” and black protesters is a textbook example of policing differences.
These incidents show that police reformers should not only pay attention to police behavior, but also pay attention to “when police officers choose what to do and when to do nothing.”
