Back the blue?
If you can spare the time, don’t just watch the clip below. Read the Washington Post’s account of how bad it got for the D.C. and Capitol Police. One officer seen in the video, Michael Fanone, raced to the scene (“They were overthrowing the Capitol, the seat of democracy, and I f—ing went”) only to end up being dragged down the stairs and clubbed repeatedly in the now-famous video that circulated on the Internet in the days after. Fanone says he was hit with a stun gun and suffered a “mild” heart attack while the mob of degenerates around him chanted “USA!” and “We got one!” Other officers had to face people armed with “metal poles ripped from scaffolding, wooden 2-by-4 boards, bats, sledgehammers, table legs and 50-pound fire extinguishers.” Almost 60 ended up being wounded before the day was done. The standoff in the West Terrace tunnel sounds like Thermopylae, a few dozen cops blocking an entrance sought by a few thousand protesters. Kyle got the officers inside and closed the doors. He thought they were safe, that the Capitol doors and windows were fortified to withstand blows and bullets. He found out quickly they were not. Thirty seconds later, people outside had already bashed them open and were headed inside. Officers raced forward to confront the mob in the vestibule. The violent standoff would last hours. Officers lined up six deep and five abreast. “We all just made a decision,” Kyle said. “We weren’t going to let these individuals in the building. No matter what.” Rioters employed bear spray and other chemical irritants that blinded officers and threw smoke grenades that turned the tunnel pitch black. “If you didn’t have a gas mask,” Kyle said — and many officers didn’t — “it was almost impossible to breathe.” The number of officers changed by the minute — anywhere between 30 and 60 — depending on injuries and how long it took to step aside, recover from the gas that seared their lungs, and get back into battle.
