> ...the fact that a small group of rioters were just a few feet away from irreversibly staining American history with the blood of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the chain of command of the United states of America...
Let me ask for a quick accounting here - what is the evidence for this? My understanding is 100% of the gun deaths were from guns in the hands of law enforcement officers who were perfectly capable of defending themselves when pushed. There are a bunch of instantly iconic photos [0] with basically no weapons in the hands of protestors. They clearly didn't plan on breaching the Capitol or they'd have realised that they were all about to go to jail forever.
There were gallows, bombs, armour, zip ties and guns brought to the protest. On many of the videos you can hear the trump supporters shouting cries to kill certain members of the government, calling them traitors. Oh and they beat a police officer to death.
If they had found a senior official I don’t think they would have been safe.
> There were gallows, bombs, armour, zip ties and guns brought to the protest.
How many guns, bombs and zip ties? Was it even enough protestors to be called a minority who bought bombs? The press would love a few photos of people with guns storming the capital, because those that I've seen look like very poorly behaved tourists with souvenirs and selfies. Gallows happen to be a traditional prop at protests (eg, [0]).
> If they had found a senior official I don’t think they would have been safe.
Nobody feels safe when a protest gets out of hand, but that doesn't make it a fact that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the chain of command of the United states of America were about to be injured. It is entirely plausible that the mob would have screamed at them then been broken up. That is the most likely scenario.
>How many guns, bombs and zip ties? Was it even enough protestors to be called a minority who bought bombs?
Stop and take a second to listen to yourself. Is there an acceptable numbers of guns, bombs, and zip ties that are intended to be used on the leaders of this country?
I doubt you are going to convince the parent poster with facts. The comment suggests either the poster is not asking questions in good faith or letting opinions cloud the judgement.
As one other comment mentioned - you are bringing facts to an emotional fight.
If all the facts and evidence over past few years cannot convince them, nothing will.
No, there isn't. But there is also no reason to assume that a protestor with no gun, bomb or ziptie is equivalent to one that has one.
Lone wolves and troublemakers out to get Congresspeople exist. There might be a few in the mob. But the mob itself isn't made up of people like that. This is the same logic that was being applied to protestors all through 2020. It is hard to get away from the BLM protests being peaceful even with burning buildings in the background.
How many "lone wolves" do you see in this clip[1]?
No one is saying that every member of that mob had intentions to kill. There is no doubt that some people in the mob did and they got shockingly close to having the opportunity to do it.
0. That looks like a mob fighting police. If there were a few more yellow vests it could be France. A few more chants of "All cops are bad" and it could be footage from 2020.
There are no pipe bombs. No guns. They do not deploy zip ties.
They are beating a police officer who is on the ground. Another officer was literally beaten to death. How many videos can you find of that happening during the BLM protests?
It is difficult to find good videos of the BLM protests, for an event that went global for a week or few YouTube is rather light on videos.
But I found one [0] leaves me comfortable in assuming a similar scene happened at some point over the week in Minneapolis. It would have ben a very scary time to be a police officer, the burning of the vehicles from 2:28 to 4:00 for example looks a lot like a threat of violence. Those protesters wanted to hurt the police.
The US has a pretty high tolerance for violence in its protests. If anything, I'd guess that rather than attitudes of the protestors the lack of police deaths in the BLM protests were because the police knew that they were going to be targeted with violence, and it caught them off guard coming from Trump supporters.
Once again, I will ask you to take a step back and listen to yourself. You are putting the literal beating to death of a police officer on the same level as people taking their frustration out on an empty vehicle. These two are in no way comparable. That was the best you could do out of months of protests attended by millions of people in dozens of cities in which the protest was in direct opposition to police violence. You can't find anything approaching the violence seen on display on Wednesday. Do you not see the difference?
>PS. Also your video is a bit indistinct, I'm not sure it does show them beating a police officer who is on the ground
You can see them drag someone down the stairs in the first few seconds of the video and then you see them beating someone on the ground. One man is literally beating an officer with an American flag if you are one for symbolism. The next tweet in that thread shows a photo from above in which you can see the officer down on the steps and there is a reply that has video from a different angle.
> You can see them drag someone down the stairs in the first few seconds of the video and then you see them beating someone on the ground.
It looks to me more like flag-holding-man throws it away to help someone get up, who then joins the protestors. The police officer in the yellow vest is under the arch on the right on the start, away from where the protestors are doing whatever they are doing. When a bloke in black gets up off the ground he joins the protestors too.
I don't think that is a video of protestors beating a policeman. If they were the video would probably have been more violent. I think the protestors might be helping the bloke in the blue jacket stand up at the start.
The intent of the mob is entirely comparable, at any rate. Protestors hurling stuff at police vs. protestors igniting stuff.
Starting at second 9 of the first video and 17 in the second video, you think the man with the long black hair and beard with the American flag is trying to "help someone get up"? I don't know what to say beyond that you are letting your politics literally cloud your vision.
Well FYI, what you needed to say was to look at the second picture. I was looking at the wrong part of the frame, under the arch and didn't see the staircase. Yeah, that looks pretty brutal. The police needed to be a lot more active in putting the protestors down.
But that, at best, upgrades the scene from a mostly peaceful protest torching vehicles to a violent clash with the police officer. Violent protests are not unheard of. It doesn't justify the idea that anyone was trying to irreversibly stain American history with the blood of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the chain of command of the United states of America.
I mean, the fundamental argument here is that we shouldn't mix the actions of the people on the stairwell facing the police with the rest of the protest. That line of thinking applied to protests was roundly debunked in 2020.
> what is the evidence for this?
>
> ...this is a not a mob out for literal blood.
No, this was 100% a mob out for literal blood. There is a STAGGERING amount of evidence.
There's video of a large crowd of the rioters chanting "hang Mike Pence!" They erected a gallows with a noose outside the Capitol. There's video of people yelling that they came to get Pence and Pelosi. Squads of milita wore tactical armor and helmets, and carried not just assault rifles and handguns, but also flexcuffs. You don't get that stuff in the spur of the moment. They came prepared. Other rioters were carrying lead pipes and wooden rods. There was even one rioter caught on video carrying a literal pitchfork.
They beat one police officer to death with a fire extinguisher and injured more than 50 others. That is clearly a mob out for blood.
As for more evidence, for months in advance, Trump supporters filled Parler, Gab, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, Facebook, and many other social media outlets with detailed detailed discussions of plans to commit violence and in many cases murder at this event. NYPD and the FBI received a ton of reports from concerned citizens who saw this social media chatter. The insurrectionists talked about what weapons to bring, which politicians to target in order of priority, and so much more. It was reported that they had maps with them of the tunnels under the Capitol building so that they could cut off escape routes.
Freshman lawmaker Lauren Boebert tweeted Speaker Pelosi's whereabouts multiple times during the riot. She did not tweet anything which indicated any degree of surprise that the riot was occurring.
Jim Clyburn has two offices in the Capitol, one right next to the front doors and one way up on the third floor. It was reported that the rioters ignored Clyburn's obvious office next to the doors and instead made a beeline for the more secluded office on the third floor.
> No, this was 100% a mob out for literal blood. There is a STAGGERING amount of evidence.
100%? Literally all of them? Every one?
I'm not looking for a metaphorical response here. Which parts of your response are backed actual evidence and which parts are assumptions based on your instincts and filling in blanks?
Not everyone in the mob was out for blood, but the mob as a collective group was. The mob killed a police officer. Anyone who was part of the mob is partly to blame for that.
No one can take part in a group action and then claim they're not responsible for what the group has done. When people act as a group they have to accept responsibility for the group's actions.
no, he was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher. you might be thinking of the other cop who died, the one who committed suicide afterwards. but that was probably not a pre-existing condition either. more likely it was PTSD caused by the event. and there certainly haven't been any reports indicating any pre-existing condition for him.
actually, you're probably thinking of the four rioters who died. all of their deaths were linked to pre-existing medical conditions. but you were replying to remarks about the police officer who was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher. being bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher is not a pre-existing condition.
I think I'm helping seed at least one torrent from them. Which part should I be looking at for the staggering mountain of evidence that this isn't a pretty normal US protest?
Let me ask for a quick accounting here - what is the evidence for this? My understanding is 100% of the gun deaths were from guns in the hands of law enforcement officers who were perfectly capable of defending themselves when pushed. There are a bunch of instantly iconic photos [0] with basically no weapons in the hands of protestors. They clearly didn't plan on breaching the Capitol or they'd have realised that they were all about to go to jail forever.
This is a not a mob out for literal blood.
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/capitol-mob-deaths/ind...