Bombshell recordings show police warned they were overwhelmed by Capitol rioters hours before Trump’s speech
‘We have about 300 people up here – they’re all refusing to leave’
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Your support makes all the difference.US Park Police in Washington DC were overwhelmed by protesters and called for help from colleagues hours before then President Donald Trump’s 6 January speech urging people to march on the Capitol, bombshell new recordings reveal.
As early as 9am, Park Police in the Capitol reported “individuals breaking through the fence line” and radioed colleagues with concern about “a large crowd that’s following us”, recordings obtained by the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) show.
Park Police met with a large crowd near the Washington Monument early in the morning, and had been instructed to attempt to hold them back, but had requested backup to do so.
“Park Service has requested that the Flag Circle is closed, uh, we have about 300 people up here – they’re all refusing to leave. Do we have any react squads so we can have a small show of force, get this area closed?” an officer radioed shortly nefore 9am, according to CREW.
Prior to the speech by Mr Trump – in which he told his supporters“if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore” – police were already fearful about engaging with the sizeable crowd, suggest recordings, foreshadowing the day of deadly violence that followed.
“People are refusing to leave, uh, the only other thing I can think I can do is threaten arrest which is gonna incite the crowd so unless we get some officers up here I’m gonna standby,” one radioed.
Discussing the significance on the newly released recordings, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said: “These are recordings that, among other things, show that as the National Park Police, that police force, was overwhelmed, they at one point had a number of their officers backed up inside of the Washington Monument for their own protection and that sort of extreme pressure on those police officers happened as early as 9:30 in the morning on the day of the Capitol attack.”
The relese of the recordings comes following information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Politico that shows as late as 1.40pm on the afternoon of the deadly riot, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent an advisory to the US Army stating that “no major incidents of illegal activity” had taken place.
This message was sent an hour after a pipe bomb had been discovered at around 12:45 p.m. outside of the Republican National Committee (RNC) headquarters, and despite the fact that police had been struggling to contain rioters for several hours – even longer according to the newly released recordings.
Less than an hour after Park Police radioed about the situation at the Washington Monument, which they managed to get under control after making an arrest and forming a ‘bubble’ of officers to move the arrestee to their vehicle, another situation had arisen at the Lincoln Memorial.
“There’s uh, about five to eight hundred people here. Is the react coming or what?” on message said, while another added “We have individuals with shields and gas masks at the statue”.
Hours later, a violent mob breached the Capitol attempting to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
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