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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – America’s stark racial inequality was exposed after a mob of predominantly white supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol with ease on Wednesday and then left with little immediate consequence, residents say. , activists and politicians from Washington. including President-elect Joe Biden.
The rioters broke barricades, smashed windows, stole souvenirs and entered congressional offices and chambers, some taking photographs with police.
Some carried trophies with them as they went out.
The lack of security and limited police response, despite weeks of promoting the pro-Trump protest that sparked the unrest, stood in stark contrast to the largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in Washington six months ago.
“My mom said if you did this they would shoot you,” said Beatrice Mando, who works for the district and attended the BLM protests last year. “You are right. There would be hundreds of deaths, if not more, if this group had been black.”
In a speech Thursday, Biden agreed there was a stark contrast.
“No one can tell me that if it had been a Black Lives Matter group protesting yesterday, they would not have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” he said.
The United States saw a summer of widespread demonstrations against racial injustice that began in May after the murder of George Floyd, a black man who was killed when a Minneapolis police office knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
In Washington, participants in those protests said their reception was very different.
“There were cops at every intersection in DC. Cops were at all the monuments, on Capitol Hill, in front of the White House,” said Abby Conejo, 29, who works for a small business in Washington.
Black Lives Matter protesters in Washington had faced ranks of masked National Guard soldiers at the Lincoln Memorial in June when Trump vowed to crack down on what he called anarchy by “thugs” and “thugs.”
One night, police with batons fired smoke canisters, flash grenades and rubber bullets to drive peaceful protesters away from the White House so that Trump could walk to a nearby church and be photographed holding a Bible.
“They treated us like the enemy,” Rabbit said. “Where was that anger and rage yesterday? Why were these people treated like friends?”
WORRIED ABOUT A REPEAT
The DC Police Department said Thursday it had arrested 68 people in connection with the disturbances on Capitol Hill. By comparison, nearly 300 were arrested https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/may-2020-january-2021-unrest-related-arrests-and-persons-interest the night police expelled protesters from Black Lives Matter near the White House.
Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund praised his officers, saying they “responded bravely” when protesters attacked them with “metal tubes, discharged chemical irritants and took other weapons” and also faced two tube bombs.
Sund later said he would resign as of January 16, according to a letter quoted by the media.
Local residents said they were concerned that the police response was so quiet that it could be repeated.
Charles Allen, a DC council member representing the area, said he and his neighbors are used to First Amendment rallies and large gatherings.
“That was not what it was. This was an insurrection. It was domestic terrorists who entered our city and tried to take over the Capitol,” Allen said, adding that it was traumatic for the neighborhood.
“I think people will feel emboldened to be able to do this and I think they also feel emboldened because they left with memories,” she said.
Among the mob that stormed the Capitol were people waving Confederate flags and wearing clothing with insignia and slogans defending white supremacist beliefs.
“It felt like an abuse to see not just white privilege but white supremacy in action,” said Makia Green, an organizer for Black Lives Matter in Washington. “See the bias of the government, of the police.”
White supremacist groups have posed “the most persistent and deadly threat” of violent extremism in the United States in recent years, Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said at a congressional hearing in September.
KIPP DC Public Schools, a group of local charter schools, canceled classes Thursday, citing the sentiments of its mostly black student body after the riot.
“We are displeased when we think of the contrast between how our country is responding to this act of domestic terrorism and the peaceful protests last summer,” he said in a statement. Charles McKinney, an associate professor of history at Rhodes College in Tennessee, said Wednesday’s events in Washington were a reminder of the “great disparities” in the way police treat blacks and whites.
“The law enforcement response was a flagrant display of systemic racism. It was a display of white privilege, the disparities in policing in this country,” he said.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Makini Brice; writing and additional reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Heather Timmons and Daniel Wallis)
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