WASHINGTON (AP) – “Where are they?” demanded a Trump supporter in a crowd of dozens wandering the halls of the Capitol, with Trump flags and knocking on doors.
They – legislators, staff and more – hid under tables, stayed in lock-up walls, prayed and saw the fruits of the country’s division up close and violently.
Guns were drawn. A woman was shot dead by police, and three others died in apparent medical emergencies. A Trump flag hung on the Capitol. The ornate Rotunda filled with tear gas. Glass shatters.
On Wednesday, secret spaces of American democracy, one after the other, succumbed to the occupation of Congress.
The pro-Trump mob took the chair in the Senate, the offices of the Speaker of the House and the Senate, where one shouted, “Trump won that election.”
They mock his leaders and pose for photos in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one with his feet on a desk in her office, another sitting in the same seat. Vice President Mike Pence had only a few moments before during the proceedings occupied to vote for the Electoral College. This certification would eventually take place, but only until well after midnight.
There was a heavy police presence at the Capitol on Thursday morning, including officers from DC, Maryland and Virginia and the DC National Guard. But the streets were quiet.
Wednesday began as a day of reckoning with President Donald Trump’s futile attempt to hold on to power while Congress accepted the certification of President-elect Joe Biden. victory. It has degenerated into scenes of fear and anxiety that have shattered a primary ritual of American democracy.
Trump told his morning people at the Ellipse that he would go to the Capitol with them, but he did not. Instead, he sends them off with offensive rhetoric.
“If you do not fight like hell, you will no longer have a country,” he said. “Let the weak out,” he continues. “It’s a time for strength.”
His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the crowd: “Let’s we fight with a fight.”
What happened Wednesday was nothing short of an attempted coup, Diana Colo Diana DeGette said. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., A regular Trump critic, said: “Today, the American Capitol – the world’s greatest symbol of self-government – has been looted, while the leader of the free world has bowed behind his keyboard.”
Sasse added: ‘Lies have consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly consequence of the president’s addiction to constantly cultivating divisions. ”
Police said they found two pipe bombs, one outside the Democratic National Committee and one outside the Republican National Committee, and a cooler from a vehicle with a long pistol and a Molotov cocktail on Capitol terrain.
Yet in a video 90 minutes after lawmakers were evacuated, Trump told the insurgents, “We love you. You are very special,” asking them to go home.
Authorities finally regained control when night fell.
Heavily armed officers brought in when reinforcements began using tear gas in a coordinated effort to get people moving towards the door, then combed the halls for hooligans and pushed the crowd further onto the plaza and lawn, in clouds of tear gas, lightning and percussion grenades.
Video footage also showed how officers quietly let people walk out the doors of the Capitol, despite the riots and vandalism. Only about a dozen arrests were made a few hours after the authorities regained control. According to them, a woman was shot earlier when the mob wanted to break through a blocked door in the Capitol, where the police were armed on the other side.
She was admitted to hospital with a gunshot wound and later died.
Early on, some inside the Capitol saw the trouble coming outside the windows. Minnesota Democratic Representative Dean Phillips questioned the growing crowd on the ground not long after Trump addressed his supporters through the Ellipse, fueling their grievances over an election he and they say he won, against all evidence.
“I looked out the windows and could see how unmanned the Capitol Police were,” Phillips said. Among the riots set for Biden’s inauguration, Trump supporters clashed with police who blew pepper spray in an attempt to hold them back.
It did not work. Crowds of maskless protesters with MAGA hoods demolished metal barriers at the bottom of the Capitol stairs. Some in the crowd shouted ‘traitors’ when officers tried to stop them. They broke into the building.
Announcements blare: Due to an “external security threat” no one was able to enter or leave the Capitol complex, the survey said. A loud bang sounded when officials detonated a suspicious package to make sure it was not dangerous.
It was around 1:15 p.m., when Chris Pappas, a Democrat in New Hampshire, said Capitol police knocked on his door and “said we should drop everything so we can get out as quickly as possible.”
“It was breathtaking how quickly law enforcement was overwhelmed by these protesters,” he told The Associated Press.
Shortly after 2 p.m., Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated from the Senate while protesters and police shouted outside the doors.
“Protesters are in the building,” were the last words a microphone with a live Senate feed picked up before it was turned off.
Police evacuated the room at 2.30pm and grabbed the boxes with certificates from the electoral college after leaving.
Phillips shouted at the Republicans, “It’s because of you!”
Rep. Scott Peters, D-California, told reporters he was in the living room when protesters began storming it. He said security officials had urged lawmakers to put on gas masks and send them into a corner of the massive room.
“When we got to the other side of the gallery, the Republican side, they let us all get off. “You could see they were repelling some kind of assault, it seemed,” he said. “They had a piece of furniture against the door, the door, the entrance to the floor from the Rotunda, and they had guns drawn.” The officers eventually escorted the lawmakers out of the room.
Shortly after being told to put on gas masks, most members were quickly escorted out of the room. But some members stayed in the upper gallery seats, where they sat due to the distance requirements.
Along with a group of reporters escorted out of the press area and Capitol workers acting as diapers, members sank to the floor as police secured a downstairs door with safe guns. After making sure the corridors were open, police quickly escorted the members and others in a series of corridors and tunnels to a cafeteria in one of the House’s office offices.
Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who described the scene, said there was a point where officers aimed their guns and weapons at the door, and that they naturally expected a breakthrough through the door. It was clear that it was pretty close to the tractor, so they asked us all to come down into the room. ‘
When he walked out of the Capitol, Himes said he lived in Latin America and ‘always assumed it would never happen here.
“We have known for four years that our democracy is in danger and this is hopefully the worst and last moment of it,” Himes said. “But with a president taking on these people while the Republicans are doing everything in their power to make people feel that their democracy has been taken away from them, even if it’s those who do, it’s really hard, really sad. I spent my entire political career on the other side. And it’s really hard to see it. ”
Democratic Illinois Democrat Mike Quigley was also on the balcony. ‘It’s not good to be with terrified colleagues, with guns to people with a barrier … people crying. Not what you want to see, ”he said.
“This is how a coup is started,” said Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif. “This is how democracy dies.”
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Associated Press authors Ben Fox, Ashraf Khalil, Alan Fram and Michael Balsamo in Washington and Michael Casey in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.