Gotcha. Just to be crystal clear, the federal law enforcement reaction to the BLM protests was FAR, FAR out of proportion. And I think that’s why Mayor Bowser was very adamant about imposing strict limits (beforehand) on the additional outside federal law enforcement presence before the speech and protest morphed into an insurrectionist riot.
My general point–related both to that and to what @duketrout is saying–is that her actions, understandable as they were, reduced the overall law-enforcement presence on the streets of DC and around the Capitol. There had been some DC NG troops deployed around downtown since at least Tuesday morning, but the ones I saw on Tuesday were not geared up for riot protection–and I think that was, similarly, a decision made in overreaction to the force used during BLM.
Had the insurrectionists marched down Pennsylvania Ave to the Capitol and remained outside the barricades, no laws would have been broken. It would have been a distasteful protest fed by disinformation and egged on by a whiny diaper-baby and his slithering Senate enablers, but, unfortunately, crowds of screaming red-hatted idiots have become something of a fixture around here lately and we just try to grit our teeth and get on with life.
And all that’s my windup to this: I don’t think it’s a good idea to start employing military units, including the National Guard, for day-to-day law-enforcement purposes. A greater show of force by uniformed DC and federal police during the march and around the Capitol beforehand might have prevented the protest from becoming an insurrection. It might not have–we’ve all seen the videos of at least some police apparently opening barricades. But there are similarly videos, taken around the same time, of large crowds assaulting and overwhelming handfuls of police.
Once the crowds breached the Capitol grounds, of course, it was too late. But I’m not sure what the right balance to strike here is. Just as I think the law-enforcement response during BLM was an overreaction, I think before Wednesday it would similarly have been called an overreaction to deploy 1100 fully-armed National Guard troops around the Capitol.
