\n\n“Across law enforcement agencies, many are echoing the same message: that no one anticipated an attack of this kind on Congress and the Capitol”
…
“\u201cYou literally couldn\u2019t have had more information,\u201d R.P. Eddy, a counterterrorism expert and CEO of the intelligence firm Ergo, told Vox. But law enforcement agencies, starting with the Capitol Police, didn\u2019t do what was necessary with that information: \u201cThe threat assessment, obviously, was a total failure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the reason for that, he and others say, goes back to the inability of law enforcement officials to see Trump supporters \u2014 a group of mostly white Americans, some of them law enforcement officers themselves \u2014 as a real threat.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It\u2019s only become clearer over the past six days that insurrectionists were planning their actions openly in the days leading up to Wednesday\u2019s riot, and that many people had sounded the alarm. Posters in pro-Trump online forums were making plans to \u201cencircle\u201d Congress and \u201cgo after the traitors directly\u201d and to \u201cBring handcuffs and zip ties to DC,\u201d according to the Washington Post<\/a>. And numerous watchdog groups and private citizens sent warnings to government officials about the threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not so much that the cops weren\u2019t aware of it. It\u2019s almost like they were willfully ignorant of the possibility of violence,\u201d Marc Ginsberg, president of the Coalition for a Safer Web, who personally warned officials of his findings, told the Post. Tensions surrounding brutal police action against protesters this summer also left local and federal officials wary of a large police presence during the planned protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Law enforcement officials were preparing for a crowd in the \u201clow thousands,\u201d according to Crow\u2019s call on Sunday with Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy \u2014 not the approximately 8,000 people who showed up. They were also prepared for \u201csmall, disparate violent events\u201d like stabbings and fistfights, despite numerous social media posts about guns, ammunition, and kidnapping lawmakers. The Capitol Police also had not requested federal support in the days leading up to the riot, and both the Capitol and DC Metropolitan Police Departments had declined offers of additional National Guard backup, McCarthy said.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “After Bowser and Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund requested federal reinforcements shortly after 1:30 pm on Wednesday, federal officials worked to understand the situation for more than an hour, according to the call with Crow. Their efforts were hamstrung by the lack of an operations center in the Pentagon, forcing them to \u201cmanage the situation by tracking down previously unknown contacts of local law enforcement and making ad hoc calls in an office environment,\u201d according to the call summary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But whatever happened at the Defense Department, responsibility for Wednesday\u2019s events really started with the Capitol Police, Eddy said. \u201cEvery event like this has a lead agency,\u201d he explained: \u201cone group who\u2019s responsible, ultimately, for what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d In this case, it was the Capitol Police. They failed to prepare their officers \u2014 many of whom were in ordinary uniforms rather than helmets and riot gear \u2014 and they failed to prepare in advance for the federal reinforcements they would need, Eddy said. \u201cThey obviously failed to understand what the threat was going to be.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Many of the rioters had a lot in common with the officials in charge of doing threat assessments in the days and weeks ahead of the riot, he explained: \u201cThey probably were very similar in race, probably very similar in income, probably very similar religious beliefs.\u201d That includes a number of rioters who are law enforcement themselves<\/a>. Departments around the country have suspended officers<\/a> for their involvement in the riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The failure to anticipate the violence of January 6 was a \u201cfailure to imagine that folks who look like you, who probably think like you, are going to come do something that\u2019s wildly different than what you\u2019d want to do, and they\u2019re going to try to kill you in the process,\u201d Eddy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it wasn\u2019t just about failure to prepare. While some Capitol Police officers were assaulted by rioters, others appeared to aid or at least do little to stop them, with one officer taking a selfie with a rioter (he has since been suspended, Rep. Tim Ryan confirmed<\/a> on Monday) and others appearing to move aside barricades to let them get closer to the Capitol.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “\u201cOn one hand, different groups of people are deemed a threat when maybe they\u2019re not because they\u2019re peacefully protesting, whereas a group of rioters full of domestic terrorists are not seen as a threat,\u201d Karim said. Addressing that \u201cis going to take transformational change.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n