Dallas-area community leader Shenita Cleveland got a call Wednesday from a friend telling her to turn on the news. President Donald Trump was encouraging people to go to the U.S. Capitol to protest what he baselessly said was massive election fraud.
When the pro-Trump mob bum-rushed the Capitol barricades, meeting little to no resistance from police, she thought back to the markedly different response she faced in Dallas during a protest following the May 25 killing of George Floyd.
Dallas police apprehended people while clearing downtown as a 7 p.m. curfew began last May 31. The curfew was enacted in response to protests after George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. (Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)
AP
Police keep a watch on demonstrators who tried to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden s victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud.(AP Photo/John Minchillo)
7/30
AP
FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2021 file photo rioters supporting President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington. An Army reservist charged with taking part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol was known as a Nazi sympathizer who wore a Hitler mustache, coworkers told federal investigators. Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, 30, was employed as a security contractor at a Navy base when he was alleged to have breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, authorities said. In court papers filed Friday, federal prosecutors in Washington said his coworkers at the Naval Weapons Station Earle in Colts Neck, New Jersey, told investigators that he held white supre
Hundreds of pro-Trump rioters today charged into the US Capitol, where Congress was set to certify Joe Biden’s presidency. Four people have reportedly died in relation to this protest, including a woman who was shot.
The protesters included “Proud Boys”, QAnon supporters and those who aren’t necessarily affiliated with a group but have engaged with these far-right ideologies.
The riot marked a disturbing escalation in the willingness and ability for the far right to mobilise against liberal democratic institutions, inspired by baseless claims peddled by the president: that this has been a stolen, fraudulent election.
It culminates years of President Donald Trump’s incitement and endorsement of these groups. Recall his endorsement of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville (“there are very fine people on both sides”) and his refusal to condemn the Proud Boys (“stand back and stand by”). He even affirmed the Capitol building protesters, calling them “very special” and