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Badly prepared, wrong tactics, too few people: after the storm of the pro-Trump mob on the Capitol, criticism rained in America about how easy it was made for the rioters to penetrate the heart of American democracy.
"We need a full investigation into how the security of the Capitol could be breached so quickly," writes Democratic Senator Chris Murphy on Twitter.
"As vice chairman of the committee that funds the Capitol Police, I intend to be at the forefront of this investigation."
The question of whether parts of the security forces secretly sympathized with the Trump mob should also play a role.
Videos put online early by eyewitnesses of the storm show police officers who open the barriers without resistance and let the insurgents into the Capitol.
In other pictures, possibly from a different section, which were later posted on TikTok, however, it becomes clear that the Capitol Police simply was not up to the mass onslaught.
The officers had to surrender to the force of the crowd.
The force of the Trump supporters was enormous ...
Source: REUTERS
... especially since they were obviously well prepared and had brought ladders with them
Source: REUTERS
Overall, however, experts are stunned that the Capitol was not better protected.
This criticism is aimed primarily at the Capitol Police, whose 2000 officers are responsible for protecting the parliament building.
"It's like watching a horror movie in real time," Kim Dine, head of the Capitol Police from 2012 to 2016, told the Washington Post.
“We train, plan and provide funds so that something like this doesn't happen.
I can't understand how something like that happened. "
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In fact, the security forces seem to have simply underestimated how many Trump fans came to Washington for the usually ceremonial certification of the presidential election and what their intentions were.
Which is difficult to grasp, given the history and calls that President Donald Trump made to his supporters.
"Given the pretty solid advance information that thousands of angry people would come to Washington and show their presence - including violent groups - the security forces were totally poorly prepared to deal with this incident," said former FBI agent Brad Garrett to "ABC" .
He states: "That was a phenomenal failure by the security forces."
Many critics also speak of a tactical failure of the police forces.
On the one hand, they were only dressed in normal uniforms and did not wear suitable emergency equipment - which made it easier for the mob to overcome them.
What is even more serious, however, is that no security perimeter has been established around the Capitol.
"Nobody should have come near the Capitol at all," says the Democratic MP Tim Ryan, who chairs the committee in the House of Representatives that approves the $ 460 million budget for the Capitol Police.
"You can stay at a reasonable distance to protest and express your opinion, but no one has lost anything in the Capitol Plaza, no one ever walks on the Capitol stairs, it's a criminal act," Ryan said at a Zoom conference Reporters.
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According to experts, a tactic with multiple rings of defense around the Capitol would have been imperative.
"This should have been a classic anti-riot operation where a perimeter is set up in advance, the crowds are diverted away from their intended destination, and reinforcements are requested from the National Guard and other federal agencies," said ex-FBI man Garrett .
That did not happen, however, and the barricades erected just outside the Capitol were so low that the mob could easily overcome them.
The security forces could not hold their own against the masses
Source: AP
But the numbers of the security forces were already too thin - and that apparently had to do with distrust of the Trump administration.
Normally, the local authorities request support from federal authorities in advance of major events with the potential for rioting.
That did not happen in this case either - because the Democratic city government of Washington does not trust the Trump administration.
The reason for this is, for example, the rabid actions of the federal authorities during the unrest in Portland in the course of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, but also experiences in Washington itself. For example the incident in front of the White House at the beginning of June, when federal security forces passed through peaceful demonstrators flogged to give the President a bizarre appearance in front of St. John's Church.
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DC Mayor Muriel Bowser had therefore explicitly forbidden the participation of federal forces in advance.
As recently as Tuesday, Bowser wrote in a letter to the Department of Justice: “To be clear, the District of Columbia is not calling for federal security personnel and is discouraging any further deployment without prompt notification and consultation with the DC Police Department if such planning is in preparation . "
Washington city government is complicit
The demand may also have arisen from the fear, sometimes expressed in the media, that Trump could use riots to create a kind of emergency situation and give himself far-reaching new powers.
The Washington city government is, however, partly to blame for the fact that the security forces were too weak because the local city police were insufficient to reinforce them.
The distrust of the Trump administration is apparently also one of the reasons why the Pentagon decided to largely stay out of it.
The military had to endure harsh criticism because Chief of Staff Mark Milley accompanied Trump to St. John's Church in June.
In the run-up to the meeting, all ex-defense ministers still alive had also warned the military not to allow themselves to be politically instrumentalized in the dispute over the presidential election.
The Pentagon had therefore agreed in advance with Bowser to provide only 340 unarmed members of the National Guard for support functions, such as traffic control.
Only the well-equipped elite units were able to restore calm in the congress
Source: AFP
After the situation in the Capitol escalated, the Pentagon was surprised when suddenly both the DC authorities and the leaders of both parties in the US Congress requested the use of the National Guard.
As “CNN” and “New York Times” unanimously report, Donald Trump had initially resisted using the National Guard against his own supporters.
It then obviously required the intervention of Vice President Mike Pence, who had chaired the canceled session of both chambers of parliament and had to be evacuated in order to set the units in motion after a considerable delay.
The Department of Defense confirmed that the talks between Pence and the Pentagon leadership were taking place.
As this makes it clear: Many factors came together that led to the mob being able to overcome the security forces and storm the Capitol.
The results are devastating: four dead, a damaged historic building that represents the pride of American democracy;
Intimidated and evacuated parliamentarians, devastated parliamentary offices.
Not to mention the damage America's reputation abroad has suffered.
Even a day later, it is hard to believe that a mob can prevent the certification of the presidential election in the most powerful country in the world - and penetrate unhindered into the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who as number three in the state of course also has many of the innermost secrets of the USA is informed.
One thing is clear: the failure of the security forces will have consequences, heads will roll.
"There will be a number of people who will be out of work very, very soon," said Capitol Police Committee Chairman Tim Ryan.