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)
How the U.S. Capitol Police were overrun in a monumental security failure
Peter Hermann, Carol D. Leonnig, Aaron C. Davis and David A. Fahrenthold, The Washington Post
Jan. 7, 2021
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WASHINGTON - Inside the U.S. Capitol, the rioters were in charge.
Trump supporters were roaming freely, carrying off furniture. Capitol Police had not asked other law enforcement agencies for help until their building was surrounded by a mob seeking to overturn the election results. Now, their officers were exhausted and injured. Their chief was down the street, in the department command center, and a police commander on the scene was pacing in a circle. Top congressional leaders, hidden in secure rooms, were calling the governors of Maryland and Virginia directly to plead for help.