Despite being tipped that “Congress itself is the target” on Jan. 6, Capitol Police were ordered not to use their most powerful crowd-control weapons, according to a scathing new watchdog report, the NY Times reports.
The report blames the Capitol Hill Police for inadequate preparation and enforcement due to orders from the leaders. That does appear to jive with comments from Chief Sund who said these right-wing groups never become violent before and he didn’t expect it to be different this time.
There is no mention of the FBI who spoke with some of the plotters, mostly found on Facebook, and who did basically nothing about them.
There is a suspicion on the right that this was a set-up and the Left and perhaps some RINOs wanted the riot to discredit Donald Trump.
The Capitol Police on January 6th were basically given orders to stand down to a large degree. It created a dangerous situation.
Although she denies it, Donald Trump alleged that Pelosi refused Trump’s offer for National Guard troops at the Capitol.
Director Wray continues to lie and say there was no evidence of Antifa at the Capitol that day. There is evidence and at least one who was arrested — John Sullivan. A number of the Democrats or unaffiliated who were arrested appear to be hardcore leftists.
The other issue is the fact that the police apparently trusted the rioters enough to let them into the Capitol. The first thing they should have done was shut everything down but they didn’t.
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Pelosi’s crazy General Honoré was in charge of the review which puts all the blame on the heads of the Capitol Hill Police.
The Times is behind a paywall so we are posting excerpts:
The Capitol Police had clearer advance warnings about the Jan. 6 attack than were previously known, including the potential for violence in which “Congress itself is the target.” But officers were instructed by their leaders not to use their most aggressive tactics to hold off the mob, according to a scathing new report by the agency’s internal investigator.
Mr. Bolton found that the agency’s leaders failed to adequately prepare despite explicit warnings that pro-Trump extremists posed a threat to law enforcement and civilians and that the police used defective protective equipment. He also found that the leaders ordered their Civil Disturbance Unit to refrain from using its most powerful crowd-control tools — like stun grenades — to put down the onslaught.
Three days before the siege, a Capitol Police intelligence assessment warned of violence…
…“Unlike previous postelection protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counterprotesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th,” the threat assessment said, according to the inspector general’s report. “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike.”
But on Jan. 5, the agency wrote in a plan for the protest that there were “no specific known threats related to the joint session of Congress.” And the former chief of the Capitol Police has testified that the force had determined that the likelihood of violence was “improbable.”
Mr. Bolton concluded such intelligence breakdowns stemmed from dysfunction within the agency and called for “guidance that clearly documents channels for efficiently and effectively disseminating intelligence information to all of its personnel.”
That failure conspired with other lapses inside the Capitol Police force to create a dangerous situation on Jan. 6, according to his account. The agency’s Civil Disturbance Unit, which specializes in handling large groups of protesters, was not allowed to use some of its most powerful tools and techniques against the crowd, on the orders of supervisors.
“Heavier, less-lethal weapons,” including stun grenades, “were not used that day because of orders from leadership,” Mr. Bolton wrote. Officials on duty on Jan. 6 told him that such equipment could have helped the police to “push back the rioters.”
This might not be the whole story but it does show that there was a near-stand down order despite warnings.
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