At this point, my theory about what may have happened is that they used their longstanding strategy for dealing with protestors and it failed catastrophically because this was a terrorist attack. https://twitter.com/houseinsession/status/1347215189343612937

It’s normal to let protesters with obvious disruptive intentions into the Capitol and congressional office buildings. What the USCP normally does is let people be somewhat disruptive for a while, then warn them that they’ll arrest them if they don’t stop, then follow through.

But letting a terrorist mob into the building is fundamentally different from letting protesters into the building.

I think that they may have fallen back on muscle memory because they weren’t trained to handle a terrorist mob.

This was foreseeable. There was a lot of information available about the intentions of these groups *including information gathered in committee investigations and hearings*.

It was also an unprecedented type of attack on Congress.

There’s never been a giant violent mob attack on Congress and I don’t think that there’s ever been a terrorist attack on Congress in which the terrorists superficially resembled protesters.

I think that the most straightforward explanation is that they failed to update their strategy and training.

It’s also somewhat plausible that something more nefarious and intentional happened, but at this point, my guess is that people in command of the USCP unintentionally failed to take the looming threat seriously, and as a result failed to create a realistic plan for addressing it.

During the impeachment hearings, there were clusters of MAGAs decked out in MAGA outfits who obviously believed conspiracy theories. Most of them didn’t cause trouble, and the ones who did were quickly arrested or escorted out by the police following protest protocol.

When the March for Life was in town during the impeachment trial, it was pretty obvious that a lot of them were MAGAs and conspiracy theories and many of the leaders use violent rhetoric that has gotten people killed.

Police presence was minimal.

Nothing terrible happened.

Also, white supremacists who use the same kind of rhetoric have marched on Washington before, and the existing strategies that the USCP used to prevent them from posing a threat to Congress worked then.

This time, they were outright terrorists.

And I suspect that the kind of terrorist threat that they anticipated and trained for probably involved small groups entering covertly.

A couple things that I think a lot of commentary on this is missing: It matters which police force this is.

This was the US Capitol Police. Their mandate is to protect Congress.

The cops who operate in the White House area and the rest of DC are different cops.

If the USCP intentionally enabled an attack on Congress, that would be about as shocking as the Secret Service intentionally enabling an attack on the President.

Another piece of context that I think a lot of commentary on this is mentally editing out is that the USCP shot at least one of the terrorists dead.

It’s not common for the USCP to shoot people. Here’s one of the few other instances. https://abcnews.go.com/US/congressional-baseball-shooting/story?id=48051222

I think that there needs to be a full investigation into why and how this happened, and whether anyone involved intentionally enabled an attack on Congress.

I think that the USCP chief needs to resign, and that there are probably several other people in positions of responsibility who need to resign.

And I think that there needs to be a realistic plan to make sure that this never ever can happen again.

And if I’m right about what happened, I think that racism is almost certainly a contributing factor to the failure of the USCP to take the threat seriously and the failure of the USCP to use an effective strategy.

And I think that it’s also possible that a lot of different things happened.

Eg: The explanation for why there were so few officers present may be different from the explanation of why the officers who *were* present acted the way they did.

And it’s very possible that I’m guessing wrong.

There’s a lot that I don’t know.

I want this to be thoroughly investigated by watchdog groups, Congress, the FBI, and anyone else who has jurisdiction, and I think that every possible explanation needs to be on the table.

Also, @jjmacnab is going to have a better take than I will, and she made a list of people to listen to. https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/1346115961653489665

One additional thing: If it turns out that the USCP is now an entity willing to intentionally enable an attack on Congress, that’s a recent development and there need to be full investigations into *how that happened*.

I’m expecting catastrophic failures from the DC police and I’d expect it from just about any other police force.

It’s the failure of the USCP to protect Congress that I find shocking https://twitter.com/rutiregan/status/1347242964750368775