WiNK

As most people know by now, on January 6th in Washington DC, Trump supporters convened from all over the country to join a "Stop the Steal" protest. After Trump spoke at a rally, many of these protestors walked to the Capitol building to protest the results of the election, believing that the Democratic party cheated and stole the election from Trump. As the large crowds began to swarm, some of the protesters rioted and entered the Capitol building. As I watched more and more people raiding the Capitol, I wondered how they were just "walking in." After looking into it, I have a couple of different theories on how they might have been able to glide through the security.

The first and most obvious theory is that the police underestimated the number of people that would show up. There have been reports from police officers that they were simply underprepared and outmanned at the capitol. However, we have also learned that days before the protest took place, the police were offered reinforcement of 300 plus national guardsmen. According to ex-DC police chief Steven Sund, he thought they might need extra help and pleaded to the house and senate security officials that they should have the national guard on call: "Sund says he requested assistance six times ahead of and during the attack on the Capitol. Each of those requests was denied or delayed." According to Sund, the security officials were "reluctant" to grant his requests because they did not like the "optics" of having National Guardsmen in front of the Capitol.

A darker theory that has gained some credence in the news is that certain members of Congress were involved in the riot; in other words, this may have been an inside job. Democratic lawmakers are investigating whether this is true: "The probe follows speculation that Republican members of Congress and Capitol Police may have played a role organising or enabling a deadly mob in support of Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election he insists was 'stolen' from them." Several congresspeople have reported that lawmakers may have given tours to people beforehand so that they would be familiar with the layout of the building, or may have let rioters in through side doors.

Feeding speculation about how this happened is the obvious fact that had this been a BLM protest, the situation would have been handled very differently, with more violence and less leniency.We do not yet know which of these theories is more likely to have been the cause, but what we do know is that the people who raided the Capitol gained access far too easily. And, as the inauguration approaches, we know that fringe groups like QAnon are already planning more violence. Hopefully, peacemakers this time will be better prepared.